Mind Games
by deathknight17
Summary: Future Rouge was defeated and the future was bright until Lucy discovered that the world belongs to Tartaros. With only a hint that they must go to Ishval a team is sent to investigate the mysterious guild. They must deal with a country that is unknown to outsiders, Gods, and will confront secrets from their pasts. AU, my take on the Gods of Ishval plus OC's
1. Prologue

Chaos wasn't happy with his current circumstances to say the least; yes he was happy he was able to walk around in the world again but there were far too many things that frustrated him. For one he knew literally three sentient beings in the entire world, two of which would probably try and kill or arrest him on sight. The other one he was working for, but he was an idiot who gave Chaos only the vaguest bit of information to work with at the moment and it didn't make his life easier. All he knew was that there were "events" about to unfold in two different places that might be of harm to the most powerful being in existence. As to when they would unfold was an entirely different question that Acnologia didn't explain to him at the time. Chaos wanted to go to Acnologia's roost to yell at him for the lack of information but he knew that Acnologia wouldn't go back there for quite some time when he was off "exploring" the world.

"I should have just asked him when I was still in that hellhole shouldn't I?" he sighed

"You probably should have" Deus told him

"Oh I don't need any crap from you!" Chaos exclaimed angrily before turning around suddenly to see a girl curiously watching him "Nothing to see here little one I'm just a crazy guy who's in the middle of a conversation with his sword right now so move along" he told her

She didn't respond but she still stood there watching Chaos which made him unsure for a few seconds about what to do. The girl was most likely a teenager probably about thirteen or fourteen, she had black hair that she kept short, she was wearing a blue jacket with a white shirt underneath and khakis. Her defining feature were her brown eyes which told the story of a girl who'd been through a lot, Chaos had the uneasy feeling that he should have known who this girl was but didn't. He shrugged before turning around and continuing on his current path which would lead him back to the familiar Magnolia Town. Finally he reached there but his mind was focused on other things, namely that girl who had followed him the entire way there. The weird part was that every time he turned around she would stop in her tracks and return his curious stare, but she never moved to get closer or away. Chaos finally decided to set things straight between them and walked up to her to figure out why she was following him.

"Who are you little one?" he asked to her silence "Well?" he egged on

"Y-You don't know who I am?" she asked

"Thanks to some extenuating circumstances I only know a grand three beings that are still alive today and you don't happen to be part of that 'illustrious' group" he answered

"But we met before! You said you'd train me in magic when you came back from your journey, but you never did so I had to track you down!" she exclaimed

"Look kid, I've been in prison the last hundred and fifty years believe it or not so unless my spectral form wandered out to tell you that I doubt it was me who promised you anything" Chaos said before he figured out what she meant "Did this person who looked like me happen to have really sharp teeth, like dragon sharp not just razor sharp?" he asked

"Yeah, what's your point?" she asked clearly confused at his question

"Then it happened to be an idiot Dragon King who took my form… why he promised you that he would teach you magic is beyond me unless he said that knowing he'd free me and that you'd find me instead of him, unlikely as that is you really can't put it past him" Chaos explained to her

"What does that mean?" she asked confused

"It means that I technically didn't promise you anything so I'm not obliged to teach you anything little one" Chaos said turning around to enter the city

"What about me? What am I supposed to do now?" she asked catching up to him

"Beats me, maybe you should go to back to your parents I'm sure they're wondering where you are by now… although if you've gotten this far then I can't say they're the best parents in the world" Chaos suggested

"They're dead" she said softly

"Join the club" he replied "Maybe Acnologia destroyed her town and then wanted someone to train her to spite her parents… it wouldn't be the first time he did that" he thought

"Your parents died too?"

"Indeed they did and I turned out just fine, I mean all you need to do is become an assassin or mercenary for hire like I did. Granted the Council isn't accepting assassins anymore let alone kids your age into their ranks" he suggested

"Hey that's a great idea, become a hired blade! Oh wait but I'd need someone to teach me first and it looks like you're the closest person who looks like they know what to do in a fight and probably the best teacher"

"Your damn right I'm the best teacher around… fuck you've used my own advice and pride against me. I like you little one maybe I will train you, but be warned I'm also doing other things at the moment so it might take some time" Chaos realized

"Just take me with you" she said

"Well if I did that then I might be putting you into some dangerous situations, or nothing would happen and then I would bore you to death"

"That's okay it just means you'll have to train me faster"

"You really know how to put me in a bind don't you?"

"You learn fast when you're on your own"

"Indeed you do, what's your name kid?" Chaos asked as he walked on

"It's Katherine" she answered

"Alright then, I'm just going to call you Kat from now on, it'll save me some confusion in the future" Chaos said remembering his old comrade in arms "Oh and just call me Chaos for the time being"

The two of them walked into the heart of the city which now looked extremely foreign to Chaos, something he expected after being locked up for so long. The city had always been a prosperous town, but it was never this big and the amount of magic he could feel was much greater than he ever remembered. None of the magic seemed that powerful so he ignored it and continued on to his original destination. Kat noticed that as they were getting closer to the coast Chaos was walking faster and faster until she had start a light jog just to keep up with her determined master. He stopped once they reached a building that had recently been foreclosed and was up for sale, she noticed that he had a frown on his face, muttered something to himself, and turned around to leave.

"Come on, no reason for us to stay in this city any longer" he said as he walked by Kat

"Why did you come here in the first place?" she asked

"I was hoping to see if I could answer a few questions I've been waiting to ask for the longest time, unfortunately it looks like nobody's here to answer them for me." He answered cryptically

Kat didn't know what he had meant by that statement but knew better than to pursue the matter and stayed silent. He told her they would head to Crocus since if he was going to do his job right then the capital would be the best place to start. Again she had no idea what he meant by that, but figured this time it might be worth asking him what they were going to be doing.

"Why are we going to Crocus?" she asked

"Because it's a place filled to the brim with information trading, and that's just what I need at the moment if I want to help out my employer" Chaos answered

"Who is your employer?"

"The same idiot who promised thathe'd teach you magic but in the end was only doing it so he would make me suffer a bit more"

"I still don't get that"

"Even I don't get what he wants me to do right now" Chaos sighed

The path to Crocus was a long one, but they managed to reach an inn before night fall and got rooms for the night, tomorrow he would find new contacts. Chaos made Kat stay in her room while he was out; she had wanted to come with him but having a teenager alongside you while you entered the underworld of any city wasn't good for first impressions. He was glad to know that the shifty part of Crocus was still alive and well, but he was disappointed to find that none of these brokers were of the same quality as his old contacts.

"Geez, these guys are worthless" Chaos thought after knocking out another broker and taking his money "Although they are making me richer that's for sure" he continued pocketing the cash after making sure nobody saw

He sighed before heading back to the inn to check on Kat as he figured she either would have left already to find him, or was about to destroy the place and make him pay for it neither of which sounded appealing to him. After all of his searching the only information he got was that the Kingdom of Fiore was building something ridiculously big and would need a lot of magic to try and power it. Of course the information was unverified and barring a very dangerous infiltration of Mercurius that he'd rather not try at the moment, he couldn't give it too much weight. He went back to the inn to Kat's room and knocked on the door twice but nobody came to answer it. He tapped his feet on the ground impatiently for a few seconds before knocking louder this time to no response until he finally got frustrated and kicked the door open.

"What the hell are you going?" Kat screamed from the bathroom

"Oh there you are, I was just wondering if you had left to find me or were about to wreck up the place because you were pissed off at me. I see you've done neither, so good work young one" Chaos answered

"Did you not hear me saying I'd open the door after I was fully dressed?"

"No not really"

"Get out!"

"Fine" Chaos said closing the door on his way out "Jeez what's her problem, you think I'd have caught her with drugs or without her clothes on the way she was freaking out" he thought

"Okay now you can come in" Kat called

"I closed the door stupid" he replied "Thank you" he said walking in when the door was opened for him

"So besides kicking in my door did you find out anything that would help you on the mission you haven't told me about?" she asked taking a seat

"Well I did learn a lot about the current state of affairs, namely that the info trading business sucks now oh and that Fiore might be doing shady things a big emphasis on the word might. Other than that I've been walking around mugging information brokers" he answered

"Like you took their money?"

"No I kindly asked it from them and they gave it to me, what the hell do you think mugging means?" he asked exasperatedly to Kat who simply rolled her eyes at him "Long story short nothing is happening in this place at the moment and we're going to Ishval to see if anything is going on there"

"Don't you want to see the Grand Magic Games though?" Kat asked hopefully

"I don't even know what that is, but the look on your face says you want to go badly"

"Well duh! It's only got the top guilds of Fiore all competing for the right to be called the strongest magical guild throughout the land not to mention some of the best mages competing in it" she explained enthusiastically

"When the hell did this come about because they sure as hell weren't doing this when I was last in Fiore, granted that was an extremely long time ago so I suppose change is to be expected?"

"Two years ago to be exact, anyway the guilds all compete against each other in a bunch of competitions and fights against each other and occasionally someone dies!"

"Aren't you a bit young to get excited over someone dying?"

"I've already killed before, some bandits tried mugging me but I wasn't going to have any of that"

"We're getting off topic, so someone occasionally dies but you talk about competitions how does that prove who's the best guild in the land?"

"Well the challenges aren't known until after each guild has selected their representative, so it adds a sense of strategy"

"You mean luck if the challenge happens to suit the member they chose then that guild automatically has an advantage. However if it's a transportation challenge for example and you choose a dragon slayer then you're fucked, not because your entire guild is weak only because dragon slayers are susceptible to moving transport for whatever reason."

"Well even if that's true the fights aren't… oh wait they are random too" Kat tried

"There's only one way of deciding who the strongest guild is; a good ole brawl to the death, last guild standing is officially the strongest" Chaos said boldly

"I don't think the Council or Fiore would let that happen" Kat replied

"Neither would I, but if you're going to toss out these stupid titles like strongest then come up with some sort of system that doesn't rely on chance or luck. But I guess it would be smart of me to learn about potential enemies, alright we'll go to the Games young one" Chaos decided

"Yeah!" Kat said happily "Now get out!" she continued promptly kicking Chaos out of her room so she could go to sleep

Chaos shook his head and let out a small smile at her elation and he couldn't help but think of seeing a bit of Mavis in Kat. He did note that Kat tended to act more like he did when he was her age, granted he was a bit quieter and less pushy or so he thought. He still couldn't shake the odd feeling that these Grand Magic Games had a sort of sinister element to it. He wondered if the rumors that Fiore was building something massive had something to do with it; he knew it would need a lot of magic and this seemed like the perfect opportunity, gathering the best mages in the land to all fight each other would contribute a good chunk of magic. Then again if it's being used to challenge Acnologia a few years worth of magic would be nowhere near the required amount and he didn't know what mechanism they would possibly use to get all the magic without anyone noticing. Either way he would figure it all out in a few days when the actual events would begin so he went off to sleep rather than think about if for too long. Chaos didn't have anything planned for the next few days as he'd need to wait for the Grand Magic Games to begin for him to actually be able to do anything, so he decided to use this time to start training his new ward.

"Why are we leaving the city I thought we were going to stick around for the Games?" Kat asked him sullenly

"Wipe that look off your face we're going to see the games when they start, but until then I'm going to be training you to be an effective fighter" Chaos explained

"Oh, but why do we have to leave the city?"

"Because it's not normal or legal for me to be fighting a girl your age in the middle of a crowded street that's why" he explained patiently

"Oh that makes sense" she realized

They finally reached a place that Chaos deemed suitable for her training to begin, he ordered her to stretch out before they began training which she did quietly.

"Alright I've done that now what?" she asked

"This" Chaos said before punching her in the face sending her flying a few feet away

"What the hell was that for?" Kat asked getting up angrily and rubbing her cheek where she was struck

"The first rule of a fight is that it'll start whether you want it to or not, remember that because it's going to be important in the future" Chaos said with a smile as she got up "Let's see what you got kid"

"Oh I'll show you what I can do" she muttered darkly and charged towards Chaos who kept smiling she aimed a punch at his midsection which he easily blocked and then followed it up with a spin kick to her gut that nearly knocked the wind out of her and sent her flying back to where she was

"The second rule of fighting, don't ever assume your opponent will show you any mercy at any point in the fight so you'll just have to beat the crap out of them until they can't move or give up" he explained as she got up again

"I'll show him" she thought angrily while quietly pulling out an item wrapped in cloth from her jacket

"Whatcha doing over there?" Chaos called out happily

"Oh nothing" she answered with a smile taking the cloth off to reveal a revolver that looked very familiar to Chaos

"Now where did you get something like that?" he asked interestedly slowly realizing that this girl might have been related to Shiori's lieutenant Caylee.

"It's been passed down throughout my family for a while, and now I'm going to use it to kick your ass" she answered as she spun the chamber which stopped causing a familiar looking sprite to appear

"Woo! You're going to like this one Katherine it's the fifth chamber, _ghost bullets_ for everyone!" it said before disappearing again

"Now what could that possibly mean?" Chaos asked with a hint of sarcasm

"Ha! You'll find out" Kat said confidently not picking up the sarcasm in his voice firing off three shots at Chaos who shrugged before dodging them easily and rushing towards Kat who tried hitting him with the last few rounds "Damn it all stay still!" she yelled before she heard a clicking noise from her revolver indicating it was empty

"Sucks to be you right about now" Chaos said as he had closed the distance between them and aimed a punch at her gut, but this time she moved out of the way and countered with a kick to his chest. Unfortunately for Kat it didn't do much and Chaos grabbed her leg and threw a good fifteen feet away before she landed making her drop the revolver

"Ow, my everything!" she replied weakly

"The third and most important rule about fighting is that there's no such thing as a fair or honorable fight. When it comes to life and death survival is all that matters, you do what's best for you even if it means you cheat to win. Although I think you understood that when you tried pulling this thing out on me, but unfortunately you had a bit of bad luck when it landed on a chamber that I've seen before. Oh and remember there's no shame in realizing your opponent can't be beaten at the moment and running away and figuring out a way to beat them" he told her

"Wait you've seen this gun?" she asked startled

"Well only three of the chambers really so I still don't understand it fully, but I saw a girl by the name of Caylee use it quite affectively against the Executioners of Fiore a long time ago. Granted she knew was a bit older than you were and knew what to do when her enemies got closer to her, you do look a bit like her though" he answered picking her up

"Caylee?" Kat asked

"She's the person whose gun you're using right now and I'm guessing you two are related somehow but I can't be too sure.

"You weren't lying when you said you've been in prison for a long time huh?" Kat asked finally

"Quite so, but no time for that we still have a lot of work to do" he answered

The next few days were hell for Katherine who at some points wanted to run away from Chaos whose sanity seemed in question during the training. The worst part was that he hadn't even shown her any magic techniques yet, everything was all about hand to hand fighting, improving her agility, or weapons training and he was strict about making sure everything was perfect. After he would show her a new trick they would have a sparring session so that in his words the lesson would be driven home into her head, usually all she gained was a punch to the face from Chaos who didn't hold back against her. Strangely after he sparring sessions he would quickly nurse her back to health, take her out to whatever restaurant she wanted to go to, and then they'd chat about random stuff until it was time for bed. She started wondering if he was acting like a big brother who liked to hit his sister a bit harder than normal people liked to do so. However one thing she couldn't deny was that she was learning a lot from him at least in terms of fighting without magic, something that he stressed was important.

"No point in being able to use magic if you aren't in shape to stay in a fight for too long. Also sometimes using your magic will be a waste and you can just finish off enemies quickly without putting in too much effort" he would tell her

Finally the first day of the Grand Magic Games had arrived and he told her he'd give her time off as long as the festival lasted. He bought them tickets for the entire duration of the event with some pretty good seating too, with money she knew he had stolen but she didn't care. She was excited to finally see all the events up close instead of having to watch on a viewing lacrima, but every second she had to wait for the announcement of which guilds would be competing was like an eternity for her. Finally the event was going to start and there weren't many surprises initially the usual guilds had qualified for the main event.

"There's Lamia Scale! Hmm, but it looks like Jura isn't competing again I really wish he would then maybe they'd finally win the event instead of tying for first like last year" Kat said

"Who?" Chaos asked

"Right you don't know much about the current guilds do you? Well Lamia Scale has been a top competitor the last few years, but Jura Neekis who's one of the ten Wizard Saints doesn't compete with them, maybe he thinks it wouldn't be fair to the other guilds" Kat explained

"Neekis huh? Didn't realize the Earth god had kids" Chaos thought "Hmm, still none of these guilds look or sound impressive I mean Blue Pegasus, those guys don't look like they could handle a fight?"

"They may look more like models than mages but they've been strong competitors in the past" Kat explained

Chaos shook his head in disbelief at that statement but still decided to sit through the events just to see if there were any mages worth his interest. The other guilds didn't do much to pique his interest although there were a few mages he figured would at least give him a fight before he killed them.

"Sabertooth? I thought those guys were a bunch of weaklings?" Kat said

"What?" Chaos asked again

"They've never been in these final rounds before but apparently they had a change in leadership and some new mages so maybe they'll do better this time around" Kat explained

"Maybe" Chaos muttered before hearing the name of the last guild being called out "Fairy Tail?" he asked clearly interested

"Yeah they used to be good, but ever since their core group went missing they haven't done so well. Their remnants suck and that's being nice" she explained

"Poor Mavis, I doubt she'd like to see how bad her guild has become" Chaos thought "well at least she's dead too… damn I've made myself sad"

He settled in and watched the competition stages begin, to a lot of people's surprise it was the Sabertooth mage Rufus who to Chaos looked something out of a Robin Hood tale taking the victory easily. His _memory make_ magic interested Chaos to a certain extent but it was nothing he couldn't handle; he was more focused on what was happening to the magic that was being released. The amount of magic he could feel was being drained away, but not due to simply floating off in the air like it normally would instead it was being sucked in by the stadium itself. He quickly realized that maybe the Kingdom was up to something and he got out of his seat to investigate where exactly the magic was going. He moved quietly through the crowd and was tracking which way the magic was going; he had to admit that it was impressive how very few people had noticed this and the only reason he figured out what was happening was because he was on the bored and on the lookout for something like this. Suddenly he heard a patrol coming by and was forced to hide in the shadows to avoid being detected.

"Oh great of all the people to show up why is he here?" Chaos thought as he saw a Council patrol led by Lahar walking by him "Well there goes my chance to figure out where the magic was going, but maybe this won't be my only chance to find out what they're up to I just wish Lahar would hurry up and leave already why the hell is he standing there looking around… crap maybe he knows I'm here"

"Captain is there something wrong" one of the squad members asked

"It's nothing I guess, but I thought I heard someone walk by here and I wanted to check it out" Lahar said continuing to scan the room "Let's keep going"

"Stupid Lahar, ruining everything for me" Chaos thought as he watched the enforcement squad leave "Guess I should go back to my seat then"

He went back to his seat being careful to avoid being seen by Lahar who probably would have arrested him on the spot. Apparently Kat didn't notice that he had left earlier as she was far too enthralled in the current fight going on. It was one of the Sabertooth mages against a weird dog/human hybrid from Lamia Scale and the match wasn't even close. The Sabertooth mage who apparently was named Orga was having fun with Toby the dog person and not really trying.

"Why is he making this match longer than it should be?" Chaos asked

"He's working the crowd and trying to show how powerful Sabertooth is, in his defense it is working I mean it's pretty clear he's going to win the match now I just want to see how" Kat explained right before Orga decided to end the match hitting Toby with a large amount of black lightning that made Chaos perk up

"_Lightning_ _God-Slayer Magic _huh? This certainly does make things a bit more fun but how the hell is that dog person not dead?" Chaos said

"That's awesome it looks like those mages they got really did boost Sabertooth's ranking they're already dominating this competition and it's only the first day, I don't know how Toby isn't dead though" Kat said in an excited voice

"Well while you were enjoying matches that reward being lucky rather than good I was off doing some sleuthing and finding out some interesting stuff about this place" Chaos told her

"Oh yeah?" she asked clearly uninterested

"Listen up; this'll be a good lesson for you. Tell me what's going on with the magic that was released during the fight"

"What do you mean? It just gets sent up to the air as magic particles"

"That's what it's supposed to do, but try sensing what's happening to the magic in the air and only the magic in the air"

"Fine" she said taking a moment to do what Chaos asked her to do "It's reducing, but way too fast to say that it's doing that naturally it's being drained into the stad-" she said before Chaos covered her mouth

"Keep it down I don't think we're supposed to know what's happening to the magic, but it's good that you can at least do this much"

"What does it mean?"

"It means that the Kingdom is doing some weird things that require a lot of magic and this is how they're choosing to gather it. I'm impressed with them though, calling in a massive festival together with a silly title that everyone cares about for some reason and quietly draining their magic. The best part is that very few people are going to notice since they're so enthralled with the event like you were a few seconds ago!" he said admiringly

"So what are we supposed to do?" she asked ignoring the barb he threw at her

"Good question I'm not exactly sure how the two of us are going to deal with a nationwide conspiracy the question is whether we can get some physical proof, and whether or not the Magic Council is on this. I can't imagine they are, but with the new Chairman leading them you can never be too sure" he answered "But at least I know my employer wasn't just lying to me about events that were going to happen, still wish he'd have told me when they would happen"

"But what about now, what's our plan of action?" Kat asked

"Nothing, we just sit here and wait for Fiore to unveil their new weapon which might be now or sometime in the future. So relax and enjoy the Grand Magic Games until then"

**Author's Note**

This story is kind of a sequel to the Past (another of my stories) in that it does involve characters like Chaos and Mavis who both appeared in the Past. Also it explains how Chaos and Acnologia know each other and how Chaos found himself working under the Dragon King, and I guess there are some plot points that stem from the prequel.

You know, now that I think about it you don't really need to read every chapter in the Past to get what's going on in this story. Just read the epilogue and you'll be able to understand what Chaos is supposed to be doing...I'm serious now if you want to read the Past then you can.


	2. Slayers' Resolve

That was five years ago, in the years after that they had tried figuring out what exactly was going on in Mercurius but never got too far besides figuring out that the siphoned magic would soon be put to use. Chaos had continually told Katherine that he could have broken into the palace if he really wanted to know but never did so she wasn't apt to believe him; that or he didn't care enough to try which was just as plausible. Eventually on her seventeenth birthday Chaos greeted her with a present and then promptly told her that he taught her everything he had known and it was time for him to get going. Crazy as he was she didn't like the idea of being alone again and begged him to stay, but he firmly told her that he was going to leave and investigate what was going on in Ishval after a bit of exploring. The gift was a bunch of throwing knives and a pistol with a note asking her to stay in Fiore so that whenever the Kingdom decided to show what it was doing she would be there to "do the right thing"; she took her new pistol and shot the note three times before throwing it away. However she couldn't stop herself from going to the Games not with the return of the core members of Fairy Tail or the fact that Jura Neekis would finally be competing in the Games.

"Damn my desire to see strong people fight" Kat sighed before shooting down another one of the strange hatchlings spawned from Motherglare

In the end her master had been right that something was going on in Fiore, the magic that was being siphoned was used to power Eclipse a gate that was being used to now bring a bunch of dragons into the future albeit not what the king had intended. Dragons who were apparently under the control of a strange looking man who wanted to challenge the Dragon King for whatever reason, either way he was going to destroy the city and she had to fight to keep that from happening as much as it annoyed her that she was doing exactly what her former master wanted her to do.

"Man how many of these things are there" she muttered as she finished off the few spawn close to her "I should probably go help those other mages out, they look like they're having a hell of a time trying to fight those spawn. Can't blame them, they just fought their hearts out against each other in the Games and now they're expected to do this? I can't wait to hear the King of Fiore explain this" she said running off to find a group of mages to help

She soon came upon a wounded dragon slayer who she soon realized was Laxus Dreyar and the Thunder God Tribe fighting off a dragon that curiously was covered in flames instead of having actual scales, it looked like a skeleton on fire rather than an actual dragon which creeped her out just a little bit. Only Laxus' lightning attacks were having any noticeable effect on the dragon but even then it only seemed to make the dragon angrier. The other members of the squad were doing their best to try and distract the dragon, but she knew it wouldn't work. Dragons were smart and since only Laxus' attacks were working it only made sense to deal with him first before moving onto the other guys, and sure enough that was exactly what the dragon was attempting to do although Laxus was still be able to get out of the way of most of the attacks.

"_Roar of the Lightning Dragon"_ Laxus shouted before sending a powerful burst of electricity at Atlas Flame who was sent a few steps back initially but managed to fight through the lightning "Damn it, what the hell is it going to take to beat this stupid thing" he muttered

"Keep trying Laxus there has to be a way to get through the dragon's fire! We'll try and draw his attacks away from you" Bickslow shouted "Come on babies let's show this dragon how strong we are!"

"You know it's kind of insulting how stupid you humans think I am" Atlas called out while getting hit by lasers "Do you think I can't hear you guys or something? Just because I'm covered in fire doesn't mean I don't have ears, but yeah you guys kind of just shouted out your battle strategy to me something I wouldn't recommend doing in the future… well I'll be killing you guys but you get my point" he continued before aiming a roar of flames at Laxus who at the last moment was carried out of the way by Freed who was in his _Darkness form_

"Laxus are you alright" Freed asked him

"Yeah I'm fine" Laxus answered

"Thank god! I was so worried about you Laxus, n-not that I think you can't handle yourself in a fight it's just that I thought your life was at risk" Freed said through tears

"Please stop crying, your tears look really weird when you're in this form and I'd rather not be scarred at the moment" Laxus sighed "Still this dragon sure can take a punch or two, you'd think I haven't landed a hit on him the way he's moving around"

"We'll find a way we have to" Freed said as he found a place to land and put Laxus down

"That's for sure, no way I'm going to let this dragon get away with hurting my friends or my old man" Laxus said cracking his knuckles eagerly before running off to engage Atlas who had managed to hit Bickslow and his babies through a wall and was now trying to swat down Evergreen to no avail

"Sit still would you?" Atlas called out angrily "I know you humans are pests but this is taking it to a whole new level, I swear I'm going to eat you and only you"

"Ha, that's if you can catch me first, _Fairy Machine Gun: Leprechaun" _she called back sending a flurry of needles towards Atlas who shrugged it off like they were nothing

"That tickles" he said sending mass of flames at Evergreen who barely got out of the way and continued her attacks

"Well here goes nothing" Kat muttered after seeing enough to know they needed help spinning her revolver's cylinder which eventually stopped causing the little sprite to appear once more

"It's the fifth chamber Katherine, _Ghost Bullets _once more!" it said happily before leaving

"That's great… but where the heck am I supposed to shoot it? It just looks like a giant skeleton, come on Kat think of something" she muttered "Damn it, what did Chaos say to do in this situation"

"If you can shoot them in the eye, then there's nothing you can't kill"

"But what about dragons? I thought only _dragon slayer_ magic could get through them?"

"That's is a big lie spread by _dragon slayers_ a long time ago so that they could corner the dragon killing market! They just happen to have an easier time of doing it, any magic can get through a dragon's scales if it's strong enough… even if it's true does a dragon have scales over its eyes?"

"Um no?"

"Exactly, so shoot it in the eye and it'll die!"

"Well here goes nothing" Kat said aiming her gun at the flaming dragon

Unfortunately for her though Atlas Flame saw her and made its way towards her ignoring Evergreen's attempts to keep it distracted. It brought its claw down at Kat who managed to dive out of the way before it could crush her, but she knew lining up a shot would be difficult if it could see her. She tried getting behind a building which Atlas Flame promptly burnt to the ground with a single roar. She fired two shots from her revolver both of which hit Atlas in the face causing him some pain, but she cursed that she missed getting its eye. Although she still wasn't exactly sure whether a shot to the eye would kill it at least she was keeping it distracted and not paying attention to Laxus who had used the time to prepare a massive attack on Atlas Flame.

"_Lightning Dragon's Breakdown Fist"_ he said charging up lightning on his right fist

He reared back and punched at Atlas, a magic circle appeared sending out an even larger lightning fist that flew towards the dragon and struck it in the chest; the lightning charged through Atlas momentarily stunning it as he tried overcoming the lightning. This gave Kat the time she needed to aim her revolver right at Atlas' eye; she fired every shot she had left in her revolver to make sure she could deal as much damage as possible. Laxus had also taken the time to charge up his next attack; he put both of his hands in the air facing each other and lightning began forming between his hands.

"_Lightning Dragon's Heavenward Halberd!"_ he shouted hurling the large lightning spear at Atlas

Both the _ghost bullets _and _halberd_ struck Atlas at the same time; the _ghost bullets_ went straight through Atlas' right eye while the halberd pierced through the dragon's midsection.

"Got him!" they both shouted in unison

"Impossible! You're just humans, you can't defeat me" Atlas cried out

The flames surrounding his body began disappearing and soon nothing was left of him except ashes. Kat took a deep breath before raising her fist up in the air in victory and then lying down on the ground, but she knew that there were still six other dragons to deal with. However the victory gained from killing Atlas was a major morale booster for the rest of the mages who now knew these dragons could be killed albeit with a lot of effort. It also had the added effect of freeing up Laxus and the rest of the Thunder God Tribe to help out in the fight against the dragons.

"What a shot Laxus! I knew you could defeat that dragon!" Freed exclaimed happily

"Like I said before please stop crying in that weird _Darkness form_ of yours, it's really creepy. Besides I'm not sure if that was all me, you guys noticed how it seemed to be targeting somebody else in the middle of the fight instead of going after Ever" Laxus said

"I think I saw her for a moment, she seemed to be firing something that made Atlas want to attack her for some reason" Evergreen said "Also does anyone know if Bickslow made it out alright, he did get hit pretty hard?"

"Don't worry you guys I'm fine if a little dizzy at the moment" Bickslow said weakly being transported by his babies towards the rest of the tribe

"Dizzy is an understatement, you can't even stand on your own!" Freed said worriedly

"I can still fight"

"Like hell you can"

"Bickslow you're in no condition right now and I'm not going to let you sacrifice yourself needlessly we can handle things okay" Laxus told him

"But Laxus I can sti-"Bickslow started

"Trust us Bickslow, we've got this" Laxus said giving him a pat on the back

"Alright then" he said weakly before lying down on his babies again

"Ever, do you mind keeping an eye on him at the moment?" Laxus asked

"Sure thing I'll protect him until I can find a safe place for him to recover, then I'll join up with you guys" she said confidently, Laxus and Freed nodded before running off to find the nearest dragon to fight

Although Cobra was able to land a powerful first blow on his adversary, the dragon soon was able to put up a solid defense and prevent Cobra from landing any other meaningful strike against him.

"Hmph so Bios taught you _Dragon Slayer Magic_ huh kid?" the dragon asked

"Actually I'm an artificial dragon slayer, I had the _Poison Dragon Slayer_ lacrima put into my body and it gave me this ability" Cobra responded

"The fuck, since when can you learn this powerful magic artificially? What else do they do now, cloning?" it asked incredulously

"Since humans began dominating the world?" Cobra responded unsure of what else to say

"Whatever" the dragon responded bringing its claw down on Cobra who was able to get away and then avoid the dragon's bite

"You know I can hear you? I'm not going to sit still so you can do that stuff to me" Cobra called out

"What?" the dragon yelled out in surprise

"Ugh, please don't yell like that it's annoying. But I can hear all your thoughts and any plans you come up with" Cobra replied

"Well then I guess I'll just have to blindly swing around and hope for the best" the dragon shrugged swinging again at Cobra

"I'm impressed, he's actually not thinking of anything except killing me granted I don't really know how me knowing that he wants to do that is going to help out in any way" Cobra thought ducking another swing and aiming his _Poison Dragon's Roar_ at the dragon who brought its claws in front of it to ward it off

"I'm made of rock you dumbass, your poison has no effect on me" it told him

"Is that so?" Cobra said quickly moving forward "_Poison Dragon's Scales!_" he tried sending a wave of poison scales at the dragon in various places

All of the scales were able to land on the dragon, but it had very little effect on the dragon who tried attacking him once more with another swing from its claw. Cobra ducked the swing and moved back; he was at disadvantage since normally the effects of his poison would begin affecting his opponent soon and making the fight easier for him. However this dragon was unaffected or at least had extra immunity which meant that Cobra would need to land direct hits on the dragon and the poison element wasn't exactly the most overpowering of the elements, even worse was that since the dragon was made out of rock it had a large amount of tough scales for him to deal with. He could hear the dragon's new plan which was fairly simple: don't let the human land any powerful moves on me and wait for a chance to kill him. And it was exactly how the fight was going at the moment, try as he might Cobra couldn't get to close to the dragon otherwise it would swipe its claw at him. Finally the dragon seemed to be getting bored with the fight and began preparing for an attack that would finish Cobra off. It planted all four of its feet down on the ground to hold it in position; it then took a deep breath, and finally released his roar at Cobra. A giant torrent of rocks flew out of its mouth towards Cobra who managed to dive out of the way, but the dragon turned its head to follow Cobra.

"_Poison Dragon's Guard"_ he said quickly summoning a large shield of poison in front of him to block the dragon's roar "_Poison Dragon's Twin Fang!"_ he yelled out gathering poison in two large waves and sending them through his _Guard_ that was barely holding back the dragon's roar

The waves struck the dragon head on stopping his roar and forced it back a few steps, but the dragon gave a loud roar before advancing on Cobra once again. Cobra cursed a bit as he had expected the attack to do more than just force the dragon a few steps back, he was running out of magic while the dragon seemed like it could easily hold on for a long time. He needed some poison to charge up but the chances of him finding a source of that was next to none, it was times like this that he missed his dear friend Cubellios…granted she was a human now so he doubted she could spit out poison for him to eat. But he wouldn't quit since he knew his friend was out there nearby and he couldn't face her again if he ran away from this battle, better to die trying and save innocent people rather than turn tail and hide wondering what you could have done.

"Ha, look at me acting all noble. Who knew that I'd go from a guy who wanted to see the world in total chaos to a man who's trying to protect everyone?" he chuckled to himself "Oy you big bastard, just because I haven't gotten to you yet don't think this battle's over!" he called out

"Some humans can be so interesting at times" the dragon thought charging towards Cobra

"Oh you know it" Cobra muttered with a smile getting ready for the incoming assault "What the hell was that?" he asked after hearing a gunshot that hit the dragon in the head who evidently wasn't happy

"Who the hell is shooting dragons for no reason!" it shouted angrily looking around to find the culprit which was Kat smiling and waving at it before she fired another shot that again hit its face making him quite angry

"What are you doing? You realize you're only pissing him off" Cobra said

"You never know, I get a lucky shot in the eye and blind him then you can just finish him off" she thought

"Wait what are yo-?" Cobra asked

"I know you can hear thoughts, I was kind of watching the fight from a safe place so it's just better if I tell you what I'm planning in my head so it can't hear us" she explained

"That makes sense" Cobra admitted "So what do you have in mind?"

"This" Kat said smiling taking out her revolver and unloaded all six shots at Cobra who rolled out of the way and they hit the wall behind him

"What the hell are you doing?!" he exclaimed

"Look behind you" she told him

"What do you mean, oh…" he said turning around to see a large plume of poison floating from where the bullets had hit the wall

"You're welcome, I think it's time I got out of here though that dragon really looks pissed at me" she thought leaving just before the dragon aimed another roar at her

"Well thanks for the meal I guess!" Cobra said as he opened his mouth and inhaled to eat all of the poison

He could feel the poison surging through his body and giving him the power he needed to finish off this battle. He released his new found energy casing scales to grow over his arms and his canines to become full fledged fangs, all of this caused his adversary to show a strange reluctance to attack Cobra who had now entered _Dragon Force_. Cobra smirked and sprinted towards the dragon who prepared itself for another roar; it planted its feet in the ground and unleashed a torrent of earth at Cobra who jumped it easily.

"_Poison Dragon's Roar!"_ he said unleashing his own roar straight at the dragon's face

The massive wave of poison struck the dragon in the middle of the face the force of the blow actually breaking off a chunk of rock from the dragon's face causing it to roar in pain. Cobra could hear the dragon's anger and all of the horrible things he wanted to do to Cobra, but he could also hear the dragon's fear and realization that this human might end its life. Cobra landed on the ground softly before he moved to finish off the now desperate dragon who was trying everything to kill Cobra, but try as he might none of his swipes and weakened roars could reach the rejuvenated Cobra who easily dodged all of them. He knew that finally his virus was having an effect on the dragon whose movements were beginning to become sluggish and finally was able to close the distance between them.

"Alright you big bastard time to end this" Cobra said

"I will not be remembered as a dragon that fell to a puny human!" it roared out

"Again, could you please stop with the yelling?" Cobra muttered as he dodged another swipe from the dragon "_Poison Dragon's Iron Fist!"_ he shouted landing the uppercut that ripped off another chunk of the dragon's chin away "We're not done yet, _Poison Dragon's Spiral Jaw"_ he said gathering his poison magic on his legs and landing a hard kick on the dragon smashing its face into the ground

The dragon tried getting up but its injuries were far too severe and it fell back to the ground weakly and could only watch as Cobra walked towards it with his poison gathered around his hands. He brought his hands down in a single motion slashing across his adversary's face ending its life instantly. He gave a nod of respect to his fallen opponent before turning to see if that girl who had helped him was still there however she had long left the area. He sighed before he could sense the presence of Ichiya and the some of the other Blue Pegasus' mages behind him.

"Men… that was a magnificent parfum I could smell from you" Ichiya complemented

"Thanks… I think" Cobra replied

"It's much different from what it used to be seven years ago" Ichiya told him

"A lot of things have changed since then, I've changed since then" Cobra replied

"Still how did you get out of prison?" Hibiki asked curiously"

"I was released from prison in order to help out against these dragons"

"Wow, the Council never acted this quickly back when I was still a part of them" Eve said

"Well, it wasn't the Council more so two guys who thought I could help"

"Eh!?" they all replied in shock

"Yeah I wasn't so sure about it either but they seemed determined to do whatever it took to fight these dragons so they released me" Cobra shrugged "We can work this out later, we've still got a city to defend" he continued rushing off to engage the nearest dragon

"He's right the city comes first" Ichiya declared to Hibiki and Eve who both nodded

While Natsu had originally hoped that he would get to use his plan he was a bit disappointed though happy that things had turned out this way. Now that Laxus and Cobra were free to help out with the other dragons things had swung in their favor, but he still needed another way to beat Rouge and Motherglare. He had thought of eating Atlas Flame but now that it was dead he needed another plan that would give him the strength he needed to fight them. Right now the only idea he could come up with was getting eaten by Motherglare well swallowed was the correct term, anyway after that he'd try and crush her from the inside and then have a one on one duel with future Rouge. Granted most of that sounded difficult to pull off but as of the moment he couldn't think of another plan that didn't involve finding a source of fire for him to eat.

"Natsu what are we going to do now?" Happy asked him dropping him for a moment on the roof to rest up

"I don't know Happy; this would be easier if I had some fire to eat so I could stand a better chance against Rouge. Even then there's the fact that I also have to fight a dragon while I'm at it" Natsu answered

"I'm sorry Natsu, I wish I could fight with you bu-" Happy started

"What are you talking about Happy? You're the reason I've been able to survive so many fights in the past, if you weren't there to fly me around I don't know what would happen sometimes" Natsu said

"Thanks, I'm sure we'll think of something!" Happy said encouragingly

"You know it partner!" Natsu replied

"Excuse me good sir, but I was wondering if I could be of assistance"

"Who's there?" Natsu asked looking around

"Down here!"

"Wait, who are you?" Natsu asked confused after he saw where the voice was coming from

"My name's Kat and like I was saying earlier I was wondering if you might need my help" Kat explained with a cheerful smile

"Unless you've got some fire you can give me I don't think you can give me much help" Natsu told her

"Hmm I could try, granted it is kind of unlikely I'm surprised I managed to help that poison dude a while ago" she said pulling out her revolver

"What are you doing?" they both asked in unison

"Want to test out your luck?" she said with a smile while spinning her revolver's cylinder


	3. Undying Flames

"What do you mean test our luck?" Natsu asked as he watched her cylinder spin

"Just wait a moment, if we're lucky you'll get the fire you need" Kat answered as her cylinder stopped spinning and the sprite once again appeared

"It's the fourth chamber, _elemental bullets _are up ahead but you've got to spin again to find out which one you're getting!" it said

"What the hell is that!?" Natsu asked clearly freaked out by the sprite's appearance

"He's a sprite that shows up whenever I spin the cylinder on this gun" Kat explained "Well here goes another one as long as it lands on the fire one we're good to go" she continued giving the cylinder another spin

"It's the fifth element, _water bullets_ for everyone!" the sprite exclaimed before leaving

"Come back you stupid thing, what the hell am I supposed to do with water!" Kat called out angrily

"Look thanks for the offer but I can't wait all day for you to get the right type of uh…bullets so I'm going to be fighting Rouge since I can't think of another plan" Natsu said as Happy picked him up and started flying towards Rouge who was watching from afar

"Wait I know that the odds of me getting _fire bullets_ are very unlikely, something like a one in thirty six chance but the least I can do is help you out because you're not going to win in a two on one battle!" Kat yelled at Natsu who was being flown away from her

She hurled a few more curses at Natsu since he wouldn't come back down; she sighed and realized she needed a way to join him before he could run headlong into the battle. The only solution she had was to literally jump from building to building and eventually get high enough to help in the fight… which would take her some time to accomplish.

"Oh well better than sitting here and doing nothing" she muttered going off to help Natsu

Rouge was furious at the situation at hand as somehow two of the dragons he brought with him were dead and suddenly he was on the losing side. He didn't have much time to be angry over his current circumstances though, he could see Natsu quickly homing in on his position. He growled and jumped onto a nearby building before ordering Motherglare to kill Natsu before he could get to him, which it began immediately trying to swat him down with its giant claws. Happy was forced to dive down to avoid Motherglare's claw and barely avoided the tale swipe, the force of which sent them hurdling towards a wall that Natsu quickly destroyed with a single punch.

"Happy just get me to Rouge, we'll deal with that dragon later!" Natsu ordered

"Aye sir!" Happy exclaimed

Getting Natsu close to Rouge wasn't easy for Happy as Motherglare was hot on his trail and he was forced to do a variety of aerial maneuvers just to avoid getting crushed. He was surprised that Natsu wasn't suffering from motion sickness at this point which was a good thing, but he wasn't sure how long Natsu could hold out. Happy finally found a breakthrough to get to Rouge: he had goaded Motherglare into a dangerous headfirst dive and pulled up before hitting the ground, but Motherglare wasn't fast enough and crashed into the ground. Rouge sent several shadow attacks at Happy after this but he was able to avoid all of them and finally drop Natsu over Rouge. Natsu flew down and punched down at Rouge who countered with his own punch; their fists collided sending out a large shockwave.

"Don't you realize you've lost Rouge? Two of your dragons are dead and if you think Acnologia is going to fall to only five dragons then you've gone crazy" Natsu said as he landed a few feet away from Rouge

"Ha! If you think I'm going to give up now after all the work I put in just to reach this moment then you've got another thing coming" Rouge screamed charging towards Natsu

"Why are you obsessed with becoming the Dragon King so much that you'd kill one of your own friends?" Natsu demanded as he blocked Rouge's blow

"Whoever is the Dragon King rules this land whether or not humans want to admit it! I want that power for myself, to do that I had to kill Sting and consume his _White Dragon Slayer_ magic in order to have the power necessary to find a way to control dragons." Rouge explained avoiding Natsu's counter punch

He forced Natsu back and formed several shadow blades behind him which he sent at Natsu who dodged the first few before getting hit by the last two. He shrugged them off though and charged at Rouge who was waiting for him and they clashed once more. Rouge stayed on the defensive waiting for an opening in Natsu's defenses to land a counter striek, but he was surprised at how Natsu could continue this furious offensive. Rouge had already explained to Natsu how he had seven years to increase his strength and was at a level that Natsu couldn't possibly match, so why was Natsu trying so hard regardless of this fact? Either way he would tire out eventually, Rouge would finish him off, and deal with the rest of the dragon slayers later, although he did admit it would be strange to deal with the past version of himself. Finally his chance came as he managed to move past Natsu's _Iron_ _Fist of the Fire Dragon _and landed a shadow punch ] in Natsu's gut and sent Natsu flying off the roof with a hard spin kick. He gave a smile as Natsu's death would certainly turn things back in his favor but to his ire Happy arrived and managed to grab him before he could hit the ground.

"Natsu are you alright" Happy asked worriedly

"Thanks to you I am" Natsu answered with a smile

"What are we going to do Natsu?" Happy asked

"This future Rouge really is strong I don't know if I can beat him in my current state"

"And I don't see any fire nearby" Happy said worriedly

"Motherglare where the hell have you been?! Get over there and kill them I don't care how just do it!" Rouge commanded noticing Motherglare fly up to his position

"As you wish" it responded before following Happy

"Ah! Natsu it's following us again" Happy exclaimed as he noticed Motherglare gaining on them quickly

"I doubt it's going to fall for the same trap again and it was able to shrug off my attacks like they were nothing after a few seconds" Natsu said before he heard a gunshot and an explosion behind them "What the hell was that?" he asked

"It's that girl from earlier she's shooting the dragon!" Happy said as they heard a few more explosions behind them

"Jeez this thing can take a hit" Kat muttered as she emptied the last shot at it and the dragon just gave her an angry look "Hi there!" she said waving at it

Immediately Motherglare targeted Kat and flew towards her to try and get rid of her quickly, but this gave Natsu another idea. Rouge had ordered the dragon to kill Natsu and happy yet there it was abandoning those orders, meaning that Rouge didn't have complete control over the dragons and also that an order could be ignored given a sufficient amount of will to overcome it. This also meant that if Natsu could manage to weaken Rouge then the _Dragon Manipulation_ he was employing would be weakened enough so that the dragons could break his control. Granted some of the dragons like Zirconis might still attack but there might be some who were actually fine with humans and would stop attacking and leave in peace.

"Yeah this is clearly what I meant when I said we'd fight him together" Kat said as she avoided getting bitten by Motherglare "Because it makes perfect sense to let me fight a dragon when the only way I can beat it is by shooting it in the eye and even then I'm not sure if that would work, rather than fighting the human where a bullet wound is probably more fatal. But hey what the hell do I know because apparently you never bother to listen to what I'm saying!" she yelled out

She rolled past the dragon's claw as it came crashing down and quickly jumped on it to try getting a better shot. As soon as she got on though Motherglare began flying up to try and shake Kat off its claw; Kat took out two of her knives and stabbed down into the dragon so she could hang on, but they bounced off reminding her that dragon's scales were definitely resistant to normal weapons. She held on for dear life and spun the cylinder on revolver praying that she would get the _seeker bullets_ and just aim at the dragon's eye and end the fight. Motherglare tried smashing the claw that Kat was holding onto desperately into a building but Kat was able to move up and avoid the impact. Unfortunately in her panic she had spun the cylinder again meaning she would have to wait even longer to have a chance of defeating Motherglare. Kat knew she had to get to Motherglare's back soon otherwise she'd probably get thrown off at some point.

"It's the fourth chamber, _elemental bullets _are up ahead but you've got to spin again to find out which one you're getting!" the sprite said as the cylinder stopped moving

"Son of a bitch that's the opposite of what I needed!" Kat yelled out angrily before spinning the cylinder again

"I'm sorry Kat it's the rules" the sprite told her with a smile

"Stop smiling otherwise I'm going to rip you apart when I get off this stupid dragon" she yelled

"Who are you calling stupid?" Motherglare demanded angrily

"You!"

"It's the first chamber _flame bullets_ for everyone!" the sprite said before disappearing

"So now you decide to land on the damn _flame bullets _just as the guy I was supposed to shoot this at disappears? Come back here you bastard!" Kat exclaimed at the disappearing sprite

"You have serious anger problems child" Motherglare said while trying to shake Kat off her back

"Oh shut up I don't need this from a dragon of all things" Kat sighed while holding for dear life "Just got to get to Natsu, and by the looks of things I need to get there now otherwise he's screwed" she thought

"You wanna talk about it?" Motherglare asked

"What?" Kat asked in confusion

"Your anger problems child, I'm sensing some underlying issues mostly due to abandonment"

"You…might be right but can we just fight now and talk about it later?" Kat muttered "Besides Natsu is really getting his ass kicked right now"

Indeed the battle wasn't going well for Natsu who was now being struck by a near endless barrage of shadow blades and other attacks by Rouge. Rouge laughed as Natsu could only put his arms in front of him in a last ditch effort to avoid getting killed at the moment. Rouge finally ended his barrage and moved in on the weakened Natsu, if he was going to kill him it would be with his own hands and with Natsu begging to be spared. It reminded of him of what he did to Sting who had pleaded with him to not kill him trying to appeal to their past friendship, but it was to no avail. Rouge's smile widened as he now planned on absorbing Natsu's power for his own and becoming the greatest Dragon Slayer the world had ever seen. He came within a few steps of Natsu who tried punching him but Rouge sidestepped it and hit Natsu with his own punch. The blow nearly sent Natsu off the off of the building and he was hanging onto the edge with dear life, he contemplated letting go and hoping to survive the fall just so he could regroup. However Rouge ended that train of thought when he grabbed Natsu roughly by his scarf and picked him up before throwing him onto the ground.

"Like I told you before, I've had seven years to become much stronger than either you or Gajeel and now you're going to die by that power" Rouge said as he walked towards Natsu

"What kind of person kills his own friends just for more power?" Natsu asked

"The kind of person who knows exactly what he wants" Rouge answered

"Do you think that even if you defeat me here you could challenge Acnologia? I've seen his power up close and even when all of us teamed up against him it was like he was just playing with us"

"That's why I brought dragons with me you idiot weren't you listening to my earlier explanations?"

"Five dragons against him? If that was possible I'm pretty sure it would have been done a long time ago Rouge, face it you've lost in the end" Natsu laughed

"Well whatever it takes for you to die with a smile on your face I guess" Rouge shrugged while raising his shadow covered hand into the air to finish of Natsu

Suddenly a gunshot was heard, a bullet flew and grazed Rouge's hand making him drop Natsu and he turned around to see who was shooting. He was shocked and angered to see Motherglare flying towards him with Kat standing on its back with smoke coming out of her pistol.

"Motherglare you would dare betray me?" he called out

"Betray? That would imply I was willingly on your side to begin with, I didn't betray you so much as I broke your hold over me" it answered

"And who the hell is that girl?" he asked

"You can call me Kat but it really doesn't matter since you'll be dead in a few minutes" Kat answered while firing a few more shots at Rouge forcing him to jump away from Natsu "Someone looks like they could use some help" she said jumping off Motherglare and close to Natsu

"Thanks for the assist" Natsu said standing up on his own

"And look what the revolver finally landed on!" she said shooting the ground near them with her _flame bullets_ causing a large blaze to appear

"Fire!" Natsu exclaimed happily as he ran close to it and hugged the flames "I've never been happier to see you before…except that one time when I ate it in the middle of a fight with Gray and I kicked his ass after doing that!"

He opened his mouth and began sucking up the flames until there was nothing left. He felt new life surging within him and released his newfound power which made Rouge take a few steps back and reconsider if he could win.

"I'm all fired up! Now where were we Rouge?" he exclaimed charging towards Rouge

"Yeah you do that, me and this big thing will go find other dragons to reason with slash kill" Kat said

"And?" Motherglare asked

"And maybe do some talking slash therapy for me on the way there" Kat muttered

"Good" Motherglare responded before flying off

"Well that's three dragons now you've lost" Natsu started "Still think you can become Dragon King with just four allies?"

"Damn you all!" Rouge screamed releasing his own magical power before charging at Natsu

The two clashed once more in the middle of the building sending out another shockwave that ripped through several surrounding buildings. With his renewed strength Natsu was able to keep up with Rouge and block all his attacks and land in a few of his own fire punches; after another punch sent Rouge back a few steps back Natsu sent him careening into a nearby building with his _Claws of the Fire Dragon_. Rouge was having a bit of trouble getting out of his crater, but when he finally got up he was immediately struck in his abdomen by Natsu who had used his fire to propel himself into Rouge. They went through the building and were heading straight towards the ground at extreme speeds; Rouge managed to disengage himself from Natsu and use his shadow magic to form a safe place to land. Natsu landed softly on the ground and attacked Rouge who had barely gotten off his landing place once more.

"How can he be this strong? This shouldn't have been a contest even with his new strength" Rouge wondered "So how the hell are you still alive!" he screamed out as he sent out a shadow beam at Natsu

"This is what happens when you fight for something greater than yourself" Natsu answered dodging the beam unleashing a powerful roar of fire at Rouge who was sent flying "It gives you the strength to fight on even when the odds seem against you"

"Bullshit you just got help from that girl; otherwise I'd have killed you by now" Rouge replied getting up slowly

"Maybe you should have done that instead of taking your time"

"Well how about I just kill you now? _White Shadow Dragon Mode!"_ Rouge yelled out releasing a new torrent of magic, half his body was covered in shadows while the other half remained normal

"Well looks like I'll have to use a little extra power" Natsu remarked before entering into his _Lightning Fire Dragon Mode_

Their combined auras began destroying the area around them; Natsu charged at Rouge who stuck his hand out aiming thin beams of shadow and light beams at Natsu. Natsu used his lightning fire magic to propel himself up in the air to avoid them and flew down towards Rouge who jumped out of the way of Natsu's fist which created a large crater when it smashed into the ground.

"_Roar of the White Shadow Dragon!" _Rouge said releasing a powerful beam of shadow and light towards Natsu

"_Roar of the Lightning Fire Dragon!" _Natsu said in response

The two beams clashed in between the two combatants and locked in place for a few moments. Both Rouge and Natsu were putting everything they had into their respective roars, and the beam moved from side to side. Slowly though Rouge's white shadow roar was getting closer to Natsu and it seemed that it was a matter of time before he would land his blow on Natsu. However Natsu gave one final push and his roar pushed back the white shadow roar and flew right into Rouge sending him flying into a wall.

"Got to finish him right here, then the dragons will be free from his control" Natsu said while charging at Rouge and gathering large amounts of lightning in one hand and fire in the other "_Dragon Slayer's Secret Art Revision: Crimson Lotus Exploding Lightning Blade!"_

He swung his hands around creating a large vortex of fire and lightning that hit the unprotected Rouge with such force that it sent him flying across the city. Natsu watched the flying figure of Rouge slowly disappear from his vision before he saw a couple of buildings collapse with the impact of the crashing Rouge. If Rouge was truly defeated then that should have meant that the dragons would be released from his control and then it'd be easier to try reasoning with them.

"Hmm this is interesting" Zirconis muttered looking around him

"What's the matter?" Mirajane asked

"Oh nothing just the guy who was exerting control over me is either dead or so broken he can't do anything, anyway where were we" he answered renewing his chase of Mirajane

"Wait, if you're not under his control why are you still attacking us?" Wendy asked

"I'm hungry and you guys are attacking me so it'd be dumb of me to just sit down and let you kill me, if you think I'd do that then I must say you humans are dumber than I thought, well dumber than cattle normally are anyway" he answered

"Zirconis, stop this fight at once!" Motherglare said

"Motherglare, why the hell do you have a human with you…on top of you I mean?" Zirconis asked curiously

"Ha, phrasing" Kat laughed

"That's another story; what's the point of continuing to attack these humans especially in this time period that we don't belong in?" Motherglare said

"Food, preferably women like the one you have on top of you right now"

"You're an idiot"

"Am not!"

"Shut up both of you!" another dragon exclaimed "The fuck are we doing here?"

"Don't you remember being under control and going through the gate?" Laxus asked still clinging to the dragon he had apparently been fighting

"I remember that, but WHY are we here?" it asked

"To help out an insane dragon slayer become the new Dragon King" Wendy explained

"WHAT? Why the hell would I want to challenge that Acnologia? He'd rip me apart like I was nothing!" it exclaimed

"Exactly which is why we should stop attacking these humans" Motherglare said

"What does attacking them have to do with attacking Acnologia?" Zirconis asked

"You're really set on eating us aren't you?" Mirajane asked

"Have you not been listening to me the last few minutes?"

"Look you can eat all the humans you were historically supposed to eat back in the past where you belong" Kat said getting tired of the standstill

"But who knows how long that would take!" Zirconis exclaimed before getting shot by Kat in the mouth "Argh, fine I'll go… god what the hell is that girl's problem"

"Abandonment issues" Motherglare answered

"You're not supposed to say that so loud that the whole world can hear!" Kat exclaimed angrily

"Sorry"

"It doesn't matter just find all the dragons that are still alive so we can go home" the other dragon said still trying to shake Laxus off of him

"Would you cut that out already?" Laxus yelled out annoyed by the dragon

"Would you get off of me?" it asked him before flying off to find the rest of its comrades still with Laxus clinging to him and getting motion sick

"Where'd Atlas go? I swear he was fighting off some people a few minutes ago" Zirconis asked

"Oh well I kind of killed him" Laxus chimed in

"Wait you killed him? I'm the one who shot like four _ghost bullets_ into his eye!" Kat said

"And I'm the one who pierced his side with a big ass lightning halberd! And besides only dragon slayers can kill dragons"

"Bullshit they're the only ones who have an easier time going through their scales; they don't have scales over their eyes so they can die by magical bullets to that area!" Kat called back

"Would you two be quiet please? Besides Atlas isn't dead he's just in a dormant state right now" Motherglare said

"What?" Laxus and Kat both exclaimed

"He's kind of like a phoenix if you 'kill' him he'll cover himself up with ashes until he's gathered up enough strength to rise up from the ashes" it explained "And speak of the devil, well phoenix" it continued pointing out a much smaller version of Atlas Flames approaching

"Hey guys what'd I miss?" he asked

"You're so tiny" Kat said bluntly

"Yes, it takes me some time to get back to my original size but rest assured it will happen, until then feel free to make fun of my small size" he answered

"No it's just that you look more adorable" Kat said

"I don't know what to say"

"Can I pet you?"

"You'll burn yourself if you try"

"…So you're fine with it?" Kat asked reaching her hand out to pet Atlas

"Just make it quick" he muttered

"Yeah!" Kat said happily while giving it the smaller Atlas a few pats on the head

"Strange as you are I must give you props for being such an accurate shot. You should have seen my face when I realized non dragon slayers could kill a dragon!" he laughed

"I told you!" Kat exclaimed victoriously at Laxus

"What? But the Master Mavis clearly stated that only dragon slayers could kill dragons!" Laxus said

"What? So we'd be immune to freaking _God Slayers_ whose magic could literally kill a god? Please tell me how that makes sense" Motherglare asked to Laxus who was speechless

"That's what I thought" Kat said giving Atlas a few more pats

The fighting had ceased although Gajeel and his adversary had to be dragged away from each other, apparently they had gotten into an argument over Gajeel's iron engravings which freaked out the dragon.

"I'm just saying, kid of Metallicana or not it's not natural for a human to do that to their face" the dragon explained

"Don't worry I don't get it either" Zirconis said consolingly

The dragons all gathered together after a quick apology to the King of Fiore for wrecking most of the town and waited for a celestial mage to open Eclipse so they could leave. In the meantime the rest of the mages were off looking for any wounded civilians and give them aid, while the members of Fairy Tail split up to search for Natsu and Erza who had been separated from the group. They had also managed to find Bickslow and Evergreen who couldn't find a place to keep him safe so she had just stayed with him and tended to his wounds as best as she could. Wendy was left to work on Bickslow who was in good spirits despite his severe injuries and was happy to hear of the victory. Little did anyone know that they were being watched by two figures overlooking the city and observing what had been going on.

"See I told you they could do it" the first figure said

"Only because you helped Igneel's child win his battle" the second replied

"Oh please it was a harmless attack to Skiadrum's kid, his fault that he let it affect him so much" the first replied

"Harmless or not you know he would have won if it wasn't for you" the second one noted

"Has Silva come back with his body yet?" the first one asked ignoring the last statement

"There she is" the second one pointed to another hooded figure carrying Rouge's body

"He's still alive… barely anyway" she said tossing Rouge in front of the first figure

"This is supposed to be the one who would try to challenge the Dragon King? He looks like a piece of crap to me" the first figure asked kicking Rouge's body

"Be nice to him Master it doesn't look like he can take much more" Silva said

"Who are you people?" Rouge asked weakly

"Your death" the second figure replied

"What?" Rouge exclaimed

"Well not everyone, I'm going to be the one killing you" the first one explained "Now Rouge was it? I do want to ask you why you thought that bringing seven dragons with you would help you defeat the Dragon King?"

"Because humans can't defeat him" Rouge answered

"Haha, did you know that there was once an attempt on the Dragon King's life by over twenty dragons? And they all were killed by him, it was hilarious really when you think about it but my point is that you can't just defeat the Dragon King with some dragons. Only a human who has the strength necessary can do so"

"You idiot, there's no human powerful enough to defeat him!"

"That's what you think, but I'll let you know that there are those who could achieve that goal albeit with considerable effort if they so pleased. You are not a part of that unfortunately so I'll kill you now so you don't potentially get in my way in the future" the figure explained "Of course I'll have a bit of sport while doing it, no fairness in killing a weakened target so Silva if you would"

"Drink up buddy it just might save your life" she said giving Rouge a canteen and he drank it immediately

"Shadows!" he realized while standing up and releasing his new aura "I don't know who you are, but you're fucking with the wrong person" he continued entering into his _White Shadow Dragon Mode_

"When you're ready then" the first figure said not changing his stance

"_Holy Shadow Dragon's Flash Fang!"_ Rouge said sending out a powerful burst of shadow and light at the figure and struck him sending out a large plume of smoke

"Please tell me that you're just warming up" the figure remarked after the smoke disappeared

"Impossible!" Rouge exclaimed with fear

"You were never destined to become the Dragon King, that title is for those who truly have the power to achieve that goal" the first figure said sticking his hand out at Rouge, a magic circle appeared over his hand and a mass of vines and flowers flew out piercing through the shield Rouge had made and impaling Rouge killing him instantly.

"Ready to leave Master?" the second one asked "I guess not" after he was met with silence

The first figure sighed and looked over the city once more specifically at the Fairy Tail members, eventually he decided he had spent enough time and gave the signal to leave to the other two who nodded and followed him as he walked away from the city leaving Rouge's body on the ground.


	4. Recovery

"Jeez how far could Erza have wondered?" Gray asked

"I doubt she wondered away from us what with her wounds and all, she might have gotten separated from us during the fight with those dragon spawn and we didn't notice it" Cana responded

"Juvia hopes that she didn't get overwhelmed by those things" Juvia said worriedly

"Don't worry it's Erza we're talking about here, even with all those injuries she could probably beat most of us in a duel" Gray said confidently

"Well if you think so Gray-sama then it must be the truth" Juvia said dreamily

Gray rolled his eyes at Juvia's flirting; somehow there never was an inappropriate time for her to fawn over him. Granted every now and again it actually felt a bit nice to get praise from somebody even if it was a crazy stalker. He resumed thinking about what happened to Erza, the longer they went without finding her the more worried he became that something happened to her. As confident as he was in Erza's abilities he couldn't help but wonder if her wounds really were worse than what she had admitted to earlier, he would have preferred she sit things out but nobody could stop her once her mind was made. As he kept walking on he suddenly felt something was wrong and ran westward leaving Cana and Juvia behind to wonder what he was doing. As he got closer he could hear the sounds of a battle making him wonder what the hell was going on: were there still those dragon hatchlings nearby? Another mage? Either way he was about to find out as he could now hear voices that sounded very familiar; he finally arrived and saw Milliana and Jellal locked in a duel, although a closer look showed that Milliana was the one attacking while Jellal was simply dodging and trying to stop the fight altogether.

"What the hell is going on?" Gray asked

"Gray is that you?" Erza asked a few feet away leaning against a wall

"Erza, are you alright" Gray asked rushing to her side

"I'm fine but you need to stop that fight before something bad happens" Erza pleaded

"Why is she trying to kill Jellal now of all times, I understand why she's so angry but couldn't it have waited for another day" Gray asked

"Revenge isn't something you can pass on when given the chance especially when you've been waiting seven years" Erza explained "Which is why you need to do something to separate those two so I can talk to her and get her to calm down"

"She looks pretty pissed off though I don't think she's in the mood to listen to reason" Gray replied

"Then physically separate them if you have to, knock them out, just get them to stop without killing them" Erza ordered

"Alright I'll see what I can do" Gray said standing up and walking towards the battle

He needed to separate them at the moment but the opportunity wasn't presenting itself, Jellal was still trying to talk Milliana into stopping the fight but it was all in vain. Gray figured that the best way to stop them was to just put a giant _Ice Wall _in between them, or trap Milliana in an _Ice Prison_. He had to time this exactly right otherwise he would mess up and risk hurting one of the two combatants which he didn't want to do. He watched waiting for the slightest gap to form between the two combatants so he could get the _ice wall _between them and let Erza talk to Milliana; he was glad that Kagura hadn't shown up though as he doubted his abilities to stop her especially after she had unleashed her sword.

"Milliana please let me explain myself!" Jellal yelled out

"Why should I you bastard, what could you possibly say that would make me forget what you've done to me and my friends? You killed Simon and made us go through hell, I'll never forgive you!" Milliana screamed as she tried clawing at his face

"Look I know that words can never truly make up for all the evil I did or bring back Simon, but know that I've been trying to make up for it" Jellal said as he jumped away from Milliana's claws

"So basically you've tried doing good deeds for everyone except those you actually harmed?" Milliana asked

"I-"

"Don't say anything, if you want to do good by me how about you stand still so I can just claw you to death!" she said angrily

"Now's my chance! _Ice Wall"_ Gray said as he extended his hands out and a large wall of ice was thrown in front of Jellal and Milliana

"What the hell?" Milliana asked startled by the wall's sudden appearance

"Milliana please listen to me" Erza said standing up and walking towards her

"Erza you really shouldn't be walking around with those wounds" Milliana said softly

"About Jellal" Erza started

"What is there to say? He killed our friend and yet he was hiding amongst your guild, did you forget what he did to you?" Milliana asked

"You know I can't forget that, Simon was my friend too. But Jellal truly has changed in fact he was trying to investigate why there were traces of Zeref's magic during the Grand Magic Games, if it wasn't for him we wouldn't have even suspected what was happening behind the closed doors of Mercurius" Erza explained to Milliana who was looking down unsure of what to say "I understand that it won't be easy to forgive him, but please give him a chance"

"But what about Kagura?" Milliana asked

"That's a different conversation and we'll have that if or when she decides to continue looking for him" Erza said

"She'll continue looking for him and when she finds him you can be sure she'll try to end him" Milliana said

"Erza we really should get those wounds of yours treated, it looks like they opened up again" Gray commented

"You're ruining the moment" Erza sighed

"I'm just saying your bandages have turned red, I mean if I didn't know you had those on I would think that your leg has just turned red" Gray said

"He's right Erza, I told you shouldn't have been walking around like that" Milliana said worriedly

"I'll be fine, besides how bad could it be?" Erza asked looking down "While that is a fair amount of blood it's not like I'll die or anything"

"Yeah but you will faint from anemia and from the looks of how shaky your legs have become, it'll be sooner rather than later" Milliana said catching Erza as she fell "Ah, Erza you're a bit heavy"

"Here let me help you with her" Gray said putting Erza's arm around his shoulder to take some of the weight off Milliana "Jellal are you still behind that wall?" he asked and got no response

"I guess he left" Erza muttered weakly

"We really need to get her some help fast" Milliana remarked "Speak of the devil, wait devils" she said when she saw Cana and Juvia coming

"Gray what's going on you just ran away all of a sudden, and oh my god is Erza alright?!" Cana asked running up to them to investigate Erza's wounds

"Her wounds opened up again, are Wendy or Chelia nearby?" Gray asked

"Wendy is working on Bickslow last I heard and I have no idea where Chelia is at the moment" Cana answered

"Maybe she's still with the rest of Lamia Scale? Juvia thinks they're close to where we are" Juvia offered

"Alright lead the way then Juvia" Gray said

"Anything for you Gray-sama!"

"Not now" Gray sighed as they followed Juvia

Jellal silently thanked Erza from behind the _Ice Wall_ that was still left active by Gray and then after he had heard she was taken to safety he left to find Ultear and Meredy. He moved quickly and quietly to avoid getting any unnecessary attention, he wasn't sure he could talk to Lahar or Doranbolt again without getting arrested even though they had been willing to work with him earlier. Even though it was all over he couldn't shake a strange feeling that the worst had yet to come, during the fight with Milliana he could feel powerful magic being released. It wasn't from any of the dragons, in fact it was done after the fighting had ceased and it was different than anything he had felt during the Grand Magic Games which worried him. After a few minutes he was able to find Ultear and Meredy, they were outside of the city and were looking at future Rouge's body.

"What's up?" he asked them

"Oh, hey Jellal glad you could make it out safely. Ul and I are just trying to figure out what happened to Mr. Time Traveler here" Meredy explained

"Is he dead?" Jellal asked walking closer to the body

"Yeah, he's got multiple vital organs that have been punctured through by something but I'm not sure what. The wounds are inconsistent with what a blade would be, they're all different sizes and the patters are all different from each other" Ultear explained

"So what if the patters are different?" Jellal asked

"It means that someone either stabbed him with a bunch of different weapons which seems very unlikely given that this all appeared to hit him at once, or killed him with a way I don't get" Meredy answered

"The answer lies in those nearby vines and flowers" Ultear said pointing to the vines that were a good distance away from Rouge's body which Jellal walked towards to investigate

"They're…moving" Jellal said in amazement

"They were doing that when we got here, safe to say those plants aren't natural at all. They have a lot of magic in them that's keeping them alive somehow" Ultear explained

"But what kind of magic is this?" Jellal asked picking one of the vines up

"No idea" Meredy said "Oh and I'd put that vine down if I were you"

"Why?" Jellal asked before feeling a bite in his hand and dropping the vine

"Because they grow thorns if we pick them up for whatever reason" Meredy said

"It cut me good, but this still doesn't make sense. Nobody that we know or who was even in the city has this sort of magic, especially not one that can last this long which means that someone else came and decided to kill Rouge outside of the city" Jellal started

"Why would they kill him outside the city?" Meredy asked

"Maybe they didn't want to be seen" Ultear offered

"This means whoever did this wasn't really on our side, they just happened to have a common enemy with us and decided to help us out." Meredy realized

"Yep, and since our common enemy is dead they're no longer on our side and they'll go back to doing whatever they were planning to do before Rouge showed up. They don't have Zeref's magic on them so they're of our time, if only I could figure out who used this magic I could get an idea of why they did it" Jellal said

"We'll have to talk with Fairy Tail once everything's back to normal although that could be a few days" Ultear said

"I can wait" Jellal said

"Me too!" Meredy said

"We're all in agreement then; we'll wait until we can talk to Fairy Tail about this weird magic" Ultear said

After he had defeated Rouge Natsu took his time making his way back to find his guild mates, for one he had no idea where they were, and second was that he finally started feeling how bad his injuries were. He had such an adrenaline rush during his fight with Rouge that he ignored all the pain he should have been feeling. He was hoping Happy would swoop down at any moment to pick him up and carry him to where the guild was, but sadly that wasn't going to happen it looked like. He just didn't want to walk at the moment, but he was glad the worst was over and this gave him the boost to find his friends so they could all celebrate. He saw the men of Quatro Puppy working hard to move wreckage out of the way to find any civilians trapped under the rubble, even Bacchus was working hard although he wasn't shy about drinking on the job. He was sober enough to point out where the rest of Fairy Tail had gone so Natsu could join up with them; Natsu thanked him before leaving to the area Bacchus had pointed out. He wanted to see the rest of the guild badly to see if everyone was alright and to congratulate them on everything they had accomplished; soon he could see both the Master and the first organizing the recovery efforts.

"Master!" Natsu shouted out

"Haha, you made it Natsu!" Makarov shouted back happily

"And I beat that damn future version of Rouge!"

"Wait, that guy was from the future!" Mavis said with surprise

"Oh yeah, long story on that but I'll explain it later is everyone alright?" Natsu said finally reaching them

"We've been able to account for everyone but Erza, but we sent a team to go find her." Makarov said "Oh don't give me that face! It's Erza we're talking about she's fine" he said after seeing Natsu's worried face

"Yeah you're right"

"Maybe she's off spending some quality alone time with that Jellal person" Mavis said with a sheepish smile

"First! While she clearly has feelings for him I doubt that's why she would have gone missing" Makarov exclaimed

"Love waits for no man; no wait time is the one that doesn't wait for man not love. But point is that love tends to express itself regardless of context…which can sometimes be an issue but not now" Mavis explained

"Haha calm down Master she's just joking I'm sure" Natsu laughed

"Who said I was joking?" Mavis asked with a straight face which made both Makarov and Natsu grow serious before bursting into laughter leaving Mavis with a confused expression

"Natsu we should really get those injuries of yours taken care of first" Makarov said after the laughter subsided

"I guess so, but they're not hurting as much as they used to so I could be of some help to the recovery efforts" Natsu tried

"They're not affecting you at all?" Makarov asked

"Yeah I can handle anything!" Natsu said confidently

"Alright then" Makarov said suddenly poking Natsu on the forehead

"What was that for?" Natsu asked before slowly falling over

"And you think you could be of any help if a poke can take you down?" Makarov asked

"But I can st-"

"I understand your desire to help your friends and it's a noble cause, but you would be able to help them out even more by resting until you're fully healthy. Then they wouldn't be worrying about you and could focus more on helping out the people" Mavis explained

"I guess that makes sense" Natsu sighed

"It's settled then. Jet and Droy get over here and carry Natsu to the sick bay!" Makarov ordered

"Got it!" they answered before coming to pick up Natsu and take him to the sick bay

"Well we've got him taken care of" Makarov sighed

"Why didn't you tell him that Lucy was still missing?" Mavis asked curiously

"You saw his face when I told him Erza was missing and that's with him knowing how capable she is. Natsu feels a bit more protective towards Lucy and would probably run off to find her if he knew she was gone" Makarov explained

"I'm glad that you know about the relationships within the guild" Mavis said admiringly

"That stuff is easy to pick out, heck I was able to predict that Bisca and Alzack would get married way before they knew it" Makarov bragged

"A sign of a great master as a friend of mine once said" Mavis replied with a smile

"What was your friend's name?" Makarov asked

"…it's weird now that you ask I can't remember what it was, but I know they said that to me and other things I just can't remember their name or face" Mavis tried

"Well it's been a while so it's alright if you forgot" Makarov said as he returned to organizing the rest of his guild

Kat was suddenly missing all the fighting that had been going on earlier; it wasn't so much that she loved fighting dragons but that she hated doing nothing. Apparently they were having trouble finding some girl named Lucy or whatever and she was needed to get open Eclipse so the surviving dragons could go home. Granted there was going to be a lot of history that would change since one of the dragons had been killed, unless that one was supposed to come to the present and get killed…Kat now decided that she hated time travel paradoxes. Either way nothing could be done until Lucy was found and nobody knew where she was, the only information they had was when she had been thrown a long way by Zirconis. However since half of the guard was too embarrassed running around naked to do anything there wasn't much progress and as far as she knew they were still running around looking for clothes. Although the sight of an army of naked men running around soon made her switch to a different thought process; finally the boredom was too much for her and she decided to start looking for Lucy which would give her something to do. If Lucy really was a Celestial Spirit Mage it would be easy to find her as they had very distinctive magic trails, Kat focused magic to her eyes and began walking around looking for the right magic trail. She finally found one that was much different than the others; the trail was very colorful and seemed like multiple trails in one, the common sign of a Celestial Mage according to Chaos. The trail also was present in the air so Kat was sure it was Lucy's and she began following the trial which would take some time.

"Still can't wait to hear an explanation about what just happened" Kat muttered "And damn this girl got thrown far"

Eventually she noticed that the trail was coming to an end which meant that she was getting close to Lucy. She found Lucy sitting on the ground reading a book that was quite interesting apparently since she didn't notice Kat's arrival until she had been called.

"Who are you?" Lucy asked quickly hiding the book behind her

"I'm Kat and don't worry I'm on your side so you don't have to panic about me trying to take away your little journal" Kat said

"Why did you come here?" Lucy asked

"A lot of people are looking for you, I'm sure your guild mates would like to see you because I'm sure they're kind of worried about you" Kat answered

"Shit you're right! I was so engrossed in this diary after Natsu had left to enact his master plan that I forgot about joining up with the rest of the guild" Lucy exclaimed

"Calm down everything's good now. That weird other guy from the future is dead or at least can't use his _Dragon Manipulation Magic_ anymore and the rest of the dragons are all just waiting to go back home" Kat said "I just came here because I was tired of waiting around so I figured I would do something to help out"

"Thanks for coming then" Lucy said getting up

"I'm sure Natsu's worried about you the most though" Kat said as she turned to walk back to the Eclipse Gate

"Is that so?" Lucy said blushing while following Kat

"Well he didn't say anything like that to me but it's kind of obvious just watching you two interact" Kat explained

"Wait what do you mean? How long have you been watching us?" Lucy asked

"Just these Grand Magic Games, but like I said the way you two interact is kind of well obvious. You two going out yet?" Kat asked

"No!" Lucy blurted out

"Calm down I was only joking" Kat said smiling as she knew that Lucy had feelings for Natsu if she was this panicked

Lucy's face grew red after her response and she stayed silent as pair walked towards the Eclipse Gate to get the dragons back home. Kat led her to where Arcadios, Hisui, Yukino, and King Toma Fiore were all waiting along with Motherglare and Atlas.

"Well here she is" Kat said pointing at Lucy

"Wait who are you?" Arcadios asked

"I could ask you the same thing helmet hair" Kat said walking past him to where the two dragons were

"Rude girl" Arcadios muttered

"Lucy you're safe!" Yukino said running to hug her

"Yeah Natsu caught me before I could hit something and we landed safely" Lucy said

"And you got your clothes back!" Yukino said happily

"Yeah, Virgo got me spirit clothes to wear so I won't be running around in my birthday suit as the one of the guards said" Lucy explained with her face growing red again

"So are we just going to open Eclipse for the dragons to leave?" Lucy asked

"Pretty much, since the dragons aren't under that man's control anymore there shouldn't be any dragons waiting for us on the other side" Arcadios answered

"Besides Motherglare is a well respected dragon so even if so do try coming across she'll tell them otherwise" Atlas said to assuage Lucy's worries

"Wait when did you get so tiny?" Lucy asked

"This girl over there 'killed' me, so I turned into my egg form and eventually came back to life once I recovered… albeit in a much tinier form" Atlas explained

"And he's so adorable!" Kat said petting him again

"Yeah you think I look adorable just wait until I see Igneel again, he'll just make fun of me for being this tiny" Atlas muttered

"Igneel?" Lucy asked

"You know that old bastard?" Atlas asked

"He's Natsu's father" Lucy said

"Is that right? Wow never thought I'd see the day when Igneel would raise a kid let alone a human one, strange world we live in" Atlas said in amazement

"But even if we open the gate will it send them back to the right time that they belong in? Also does it have enough magic to do that?" Lucy asked

"The full moon is gone so we can control it easier this time around and there isn't a concern with the amount of magic that it has. It clearly had enough magic energy to stay open long enough for ten thousand dragons to march into the future so it easily has enough to send seven back. All we need is for you and Yukino to open the gates after all the dragons have been gathered into this spot" Hisui answered

"Motherglare you mind gathering up all the other dragons up here so you guys can go home?" Kat asked

"Sure thing little one I'll be back" Motherglare said flying off to gather up the rest of the dragons

"While she's off would anyone mind explaining to me how all these dragons showed up here in the first place? Because I don't like being in the dark about all of this, besides you're going to have to explain to your people what happened so might as well start with me and get a practice run in" Kat asked "Not everyone at once now" Kat said after she was met with silence

"I guess everyone does deserve an explanation for these events" the king said

"No shit!" Kat replied

"Be more respectful of the king!" Arcadios said

"Shut up helmet hair! You're just as culpable as your king is, just because he's a king doesn't mean he's insulated from scrutiny…theoretically anyway" Kat said "Go on King Fiore I'm all ears"

The king explained all of what had happened to Kat: the visits from the future by both Rouge and Lucy giving their contradictory tales. The response by the Kingdom after a long and arduous thought process to build Eclipse as a way to defend Fiore against the dragons, and how they had used the Grand Magic Games as a method to gather up the necessary magic to use Eclipse. Hisui also supplemented the story with the reasoning as to why she chose to open Eclipse as her informant from the future had predicted events exactly as they occurred so she trusted his judgment about the impending dragon invasion. After they had finished their explanation Kat nodded before going deep into thought, and then suddenly she burst out into laughter.

"What's so funny?" Arcadios demanded as he was getting tired Kat's antics

"How stupid and convoluted that whole plan was! Oh and how you totally got played by a dude from the future that used your own tool to nearly destroy this city" Kat explained after her laughter subsided

"Well yes in hindsight we did get tricked but we were only trying to do what was right for the world" Hisui defended

"Yeah by stopping a ten thousand dragon invasion force that was somehow gathering up where nobody could see them. Do you even know how many dragons are left in the world?" Kat asked before laughing once more

"Nobody knows because they all disappeared!" Hisui answered

"While it's true they disappeared even back around twenty years ago there weren't too many dragons roaming around. The population of dragons has decreased by a lot over the past few hundred years, due to a variety of factors. Like a whole bunch of them getting killed during the civil war they had a while back, and Acnologia promptly killing every dragon he could see. Combine this with a bunch of other dragon slayers who throughout the years have tried imitating him and you'll find that there are might be a few thousand dragons left in the world. Oh and remember that not all dragons are human haters, some of them like us and have raised kids just look at Natsu. So a logical person would have been able to figure out that maybe the dude from the future was using you" Kat responded calmly

"It's easy for you to say but given the fact that he was able to predict everything that was happening so accurately we trusted that he was telling us the truth" Hisui exclaimed

"So he tells you to build something that draws heavily from the Book of Zeref and you don't question him at all? That's a new level of stupidity I didn't think possible, oh and did it ever cross your mind to figure out what exactly your gate does if you were going to build it? Because the difference between a time machine and cannon is pretty important when it comes to defending the place" Kat asked

"Enough!" Lucy yelled out "What does any of this fighting accomplish? We need to focus now on rebuilding the city instead of trying to blame each other; Kat they had good intentions and were truly concerned about the city and tried to do what was right it just didn't end well" she continued

"That makes sense, they had good intentions therefore all the destruction that was caused should be ignored. These idiots should be arrested by the Council for trying to activate a freaking gate that used Zeref's magic which is so illegal that it's not even funny. But apparently I'm in the minority here when it comes to actually punishing people so I'm going to take a walk and get away from all this stupidity" Kat said angrily as she left quickly followed by Atlas

Hisui also decided to take a walk to clear her mind and she was followed by Arcadios; everyone else though was silent and Lucy let out a long sigh. She was tired of all this and just wanted to reunite with everyone at Fairy Tail and then take a long hot bath to get all the stress out. She decided to pass the time by talking with Yukino as to what her plans would be after this all of this since she only had a temporary role in the Eclipse Project. They had a long conversation going and Lucy was about to recommend that she should join Fairy Tail, but she was stopped by the arrival of Motherglare and the other dragons.

"Hey you're that naked person I tossed halfway across the city!" Zirconis laughed when he saw Lucy

"Yeah that was me" Lucy sighed

"Hmm but you have clothes on now… how about one more naked toss for old times' sake!" he said taking a deep breath to roar at Lucy before getting slapped across the face by Motherglare

"Stop that Zirconis you can do that to another human when we get back to our time" Motherglare lectured

"Yes Mom" Zirconis muttered

"Ah I see everyone is here" Hisui said as she arrived with Arcadios in tow "Thank you all for being so cooperative with us"

"No problem young one just be careful next time you think about time travel" Motherglare responded

"You can bet on that" King Toma answered with a smile

"Lucy, Yukino, if you would" Hisui said

They nodded and went to the gate to activate the twelve Zodiac Keys that would open it back to when the dragons belonged. They activated it and could feel that same overwhelming amount of magic being released as the Eclipse Gate slowly opened, but suddenly a dragon's head poked out from the open gate.

"Yo Motherglare are we still doing the whole take over the world deal? Because I don't feel that guy's magic possessing me anymore so we were kind of wondering if that was still on" it asked

"No he's dead and we're all returning to our time so if you could get out of the way Bios…" Motherglare said

"Alright then" Bios said retracting its head

"Jeez, for a second there I thought we were going to have to deal with more dragons" Lucy thought

"Well it was nice meeting you all, oh and if you see Kat tell her that everything will be alright and that she shouldn't be afraid of making friends" Motherglare said before walking through the gate

"Just saying, we still have enough time for a nude toss" Zirconis told Lucy

"For the last time you pervert no!" Lucy screamed

"HAHAHA, I love messing with humans" Zirconis laughed before entering the gate

He was soon followed by the other four dragons; when Atlas flew through the gate Lucy and Yukino went to close the Gate. There was a sense of relief that was felt by everybody nearby but no cheering; King Toma told Lucy and Yukino that they were free to return to find their friends. He also said he needed some time to figure out a way to thank everyone for all their help in protecting the city and saving countless lives. Lucy and Yukino made their way back to the Central Park where Fairy Tail had been defending when they last saw them. When they arrived they saw the rest of the guild engaging in cleanup operations and carrying anyone wounded by the attack to a shelter.

"Lu-chan there you are!" Levy said happily when she saw Lucy and ran up to hug her

"Levy! I'm so glad you're safe" Lucy exclaimed returning the hug

"We managed to make it out without too many injuries although the Master's hand is still burned but he refuses to get treatment until everyone is accounted for. Oh and Natsu's in the shelter we're using over there" Levy pointed out

"Thanks Levy I'll go see him now"

"Of course you will" Levy said with a sheepish smile

"What?"

"Nothing, have fun Lu-chan!"

"Shall we go then Lucy?" Yukino asked

"Sure thing" Lucy said as they both walked into the shelter to look for Natsu or anyone else from the guild. Their eyes were immediately drawn to a ruckus that was occurring at the far end of the shelter

"Erza you can't leave!" Gray yelled out trying to push Erza back on her bed

"Gray I'm fine Wendy healed my wounds and now I'm going to go help out in the recovery effort!" Erza said slowly getting up despite Gray's best efforts

"Somebody please talk some sense into this girl!" Gray called out desperately

"Erza what are you doing?" Lucy asked rushing to Gray's help

"Oh Lucy you're safe" Erza said immediately tossing Gray out of the way so she could get up to greet Lucy

"Erza you really should be getting some rest right now" Lucy said worriedly

"It's all good Lucy it's not like I'm going to battle with these wounds I'm just going to help Master organize the cleanup and do whatever else I can to help" Erza explained

"Well if you say so" Lucy said still a bit unsure

"Yeah let's all ignore the inured Gray over here" Gray called out still lying on the floor

"Do you know where Natsu is?" Lucy asked

"He should be around here somewhere" Erza said scanning the area "Oh there he is right around the opposite end of the room with Happy, he's talking to some girl with black hair it looks like" Erza pointed out before leaving

"Seriously I'm still hurt over here, and Lucy you are awful at preventing people from overexerting themselves" Gray called out again

"Yukino could you help him up I'm going to go talk to Natsu" Lucy asked

"Sure thing" Yukino said as she went to help Gray up and put him on Erza's former bed

"Natsu!" Lucy called out

"Well look who it is" Kat said turning around

"Lucy you're alive! And you have clothes on!" Happy exclaimed to Lucy's ire

"Lucy, have all the dragons gone back to their time?" Natsu asked

"Yeah, Yukino and I opened the gate and then they all left peacefully. Then the king said we could all go back until he figured out a way to thank everyone for their help in defending the city" Lucy answered

"That's good to hear" Natsu said

"How are you feeling after your fight with Rouge?" Lucy asked

"Chelia took care of most of the injuries I had earlier so I'm feeling a lot better, the only reason I'm resting is because Gray threatened to knock me out earlier but at least Happy and Kat are keeping me company so it's all good"

"So how do you know Kat?" Lucy asked

"She helped me out big time against Rouge first she distracted the dragon Rouge was riding around on and then she gave me fire to eat, oh and this was after she convinced the dragon to join our side." Natsu explained

"It was really awesome!" Happy summed up

"I didn't do that much really, the fire thing I just got lucky and the only reason Motherglare changed sides because apparently she wanted to help me out with my issues" Kat said trying to deflect away the praise

"Sheesh, learn to take a compliment Kat" Natsu said giving her a hard slap on the back that nearly knocked her on the ground

"She really has been a big help then, I wish I could have done more to help everyone out" Lucy thought

"Oh Lucy, I wanted to apologize for everything I said earlier. I guess I can understand their thought process even if I would have done things differently" Kat said

"You don't need to apologize you were just saying what a lot of people must have been thinking" Lucy said

"We're all good then?" Kat asked

"We are. Oh a dragon wanted me to tell you that you shouldn't be afraid to make friends" Lucy remembered

"Doesn't that stupid dragon know anything about privacy?" Kat seethed "But I do appreciate her message, thanks for telling me that" she continued

A few minutes later they left Natsu so he could get some sleep and went outside to see how everything was going. Erza's return had allowed Makarov to get his hand taken care of and he was enjoying his relaxation letting Erza oversee the recovery process. Lucy was amazed that after all of what Erza had gone through that she could still have this much energy to do all of this.

"Lucy! No slacking off get to work" Erza called out

"Eh, me?" Lucy asked with a scared face

"Don't give me that look, you're healthy enough to move around so get to work! Go with Juvia and her group, they're working on removing the rubble from the northern part of the park." Erza ordered

"Why couldn't I have worked with Levy though?" Lucy asked

"Because you two will just talk with each other instead of getting work done, and Juvia gets way more intense every time she sees you for some reason so it works out for everyone if you work with her" Erza explained "Move it!"

"Yes Ma'am" Lucy exclaimed to scared to resist any further

Just as Erza had said the moment Juvia saw Lucy she began to work twice as hard to show off her superiority to her rival for Gray's affection. It was hard work, but they all kept at it until the day's end; although several times Elfman and Laxus would have to hold Erza back to stop her from "showing" everyone how to properly do their jobs and risk reopening her wounds. Camps had been set up for the guild as the inn they were staying at had been destroyed during the dragon's attack, and the other ones were filled to capacity so everyone had to sleep in a tent for the time being. Lucy went to her tent and took out her future counterpart's diary and began reading it from where she had left off originally, and soon she saw something that made her tense up.

"Although Rouge was defeated that did not stop the world from becoming the terrible place I live in today" Lucy read "So Rouge didn't cause that horrible future she or I came from, then what did?" Lucy wondered before reading on "The world belongs to Tartaros now and nobody dares resist their all powerful rule. I'm asking a lot out of my past self but now is the only time we can stop them before they begin their takeover of the world, go to Ishval that is where they first appeared and it is where you must stop them.

"And beware the man with no face; he will either be a powerful ally or the death of everyone you love"


	5. Surprise attack

Lucy didn't get much sleep that night and woke up exhausted; unfortunately Erza didn't give her a break and put her back to work with Juvia. Lucy summoned Virgo to do the work so she could get some rest, but Erza woke her up immediately and made her go back to heavy lifting. Lucy grumbled to herself as she felt that Erza was picking on her at this point, granted Erza was only thinking about the wellbeing of the city so she could be forgiven. Eventually Makarov decided it was time for a lunch break seeing as Erza had worked the rest of the guild ragged except for Natsu who was still resting. He also told them that the king wanted to speak to the masters of the guilds present to lay out what the future plans and more importantly to Makarov when Fairy Tail would get their reward money for winning the Grand Magic Games. After lunch Makarov followed by Mavis left to attend the meeting the King had ordered, which meant that Erza was once again in charge.

"Erza please we're way ahead of what the other guilds have done, could you please let us rest just a bit longer?" Gray asked

"We're ahead but we haven't finished the job yet and we won't rest until we finished the job!" Erza exclaimed

"But we just took a break, so doesn't that already disprove your last statement?" Jet asked

"That was when Master was here, but now he and the first are both gone meaning I'm in charge until they come back" Erza responded

"Shouldn't Laxus be in charge? I mean he is the Master's grandson and does have both seniority and the strength advantage over you" Elfman asked

"Idiot" Gray muttered

"What was that Elfman?" Erza asked moving menacingly towards Elfman who tried his best to keep his ground

"I was just say-"

"Just because Laxus might be a teeny bit stronger than me doesn't mean you get to spend the day lying around doing nothing…unless you think you could beat me in a fight?" Erza said slowly making Elfman cower in fear

"I-I w-wouldn't think of it" Elfman stammered

"So get moving!" Erza yelled causing everyone but Laxus and Kat who were having a good time watching everyone else scamper away

"And don't think you two can rest for too long!" Erza called out to them

"He might not be able to rest for too long, but I'm not even in the guild so you can't really order me around." Kat replied which annoyed Erza and made Laxus laugh

"Good one" Laxus said as Erza turned around to manage the rest of the guild "I never really thanked you for your help with Atlas earlier"

"Don't mention it" Kat dismissed

"So what made you decide to help us out?" Laxus asked

"Just happened to be watching the Games when all this happened so I figured I might as well do something to help you guys out" she answered

"So you just decided to swoop in and save the day huh? No external motivations whatsoever?" he asked

"Eh, I guess you could say I had some motivation in staying" Kat shrugged

"What was it?" Laxus asked

"A favor to my master I guess" she said after a few moments of thought

"You guess?"

"It's complicated, but to sum it up my master had figured that something shady was going on in Mercurius yet didn't care enough to actually do anything about it. He asked me to stay here until whatever was happening would be debuted and then he left to go travelling the world; I actually planned on leaving to spite him, but the return of Fairy Tail was too much for me to miss, so I ended up sticking around like my master wanted me to do" Kat explained

"So you guys knew this was going to happen?" Laxus asked

"Well my master might have known what was going to happen; I don't know for sure since I was only told what I needed to know according to him. Now I'm not sure if he actually knew they were building a time machine for a homicidal maniac to use for a dragon invasion, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did know and just wanted someone else to deal with it"

"That's quite an interesting master you have"

"He's an ass is what he is" Kat muttered

"Alright then" Laxus said knowing that he shouldn't keep pressing on the current topic "So are you part of a guild?"

"No, never saw the purpose" Kat replied bluntly

"There's a lot to gain from being in one" Laxus started

"Says the guy who got kicked out of his guild" Kat replied with a blank expression

"Well yes, but that was because I was well… a dumbass; I didn't understand what it meant to be in a guild, how to treat my guild mates as more than co-workers but rather as friends and as an extended family" Laxus explained

"That brings a tear to my eye Sparky it really does, but I still don't get what your point is" Kat said

"Sparky? Anyway my point is that joining one can be fun and good for you"

"You're trying to recruit me aren't you?"

"Not often you find a non dragon slayer killing dragons just figured I'd ask and hope for the best" Laxus admitted

"While I do appreciate the offer it wouldn't really fit into my schedule at the moment, but maybe after I'm done travelling I'll give you guys a call" Kat said

"It's your call in the end" Laxus said while stretching before lying back down

She had to admit it was a tempting offer to join them; they were a nice bunch and more importantly a powerful bunch. However she still had one more thing she needed to do before she could settle down, and that was finding her master who had left her alone in the world. She knew it would be difficult to find him, all she knew that he was wondering around somewhere in Ishval; granted he said that over a year ago so he easily could have been somewhere else. Odds were that she might never run into him again but then again so were the odds of her being able to "kill" a dragon, and she really wanted to see him again. She passed the time by taking out one of her throwing knives and tossing it up in the air and then catching it while watching the members of Fairy Tail work. An hour later Makarov and Mavis returned from the meeting with the king and Makarov didn't look too happy with the outcome as Mavis was still trying to console him; eventually Makarov broke out into tears which woke Laxus up from his nap.

"Jeez old man what's your problem?" Laxus asked irritated at having his nap disrupted

"Laxus the king's a big meanie!" Makarov exclaimed

"What?" Laxus and Kat asked both clearly confused

"He's just mad that the reward money Fairy Tail would have received has been severely reduced from thirty million to jewel to around five million" Mavis explained

"That makes sense, after all I'm pretty sure the city repairs are going to cost a lot of money so I don't think the King can be giving too much money away" Laxus reasoned

"Laxus you're supposed to take your grandfather's side! How could you do this to me after I let you back in the guild?" Makarov asked crying even louder

"Well Gildarts was the one who let me back in and if I remember right and you begrudgingly accepted it, second taking money that could have been used to help out all these innocent people is wrong" Laxus said

"Well said Laxus" Mavis said

"How are we supposed to buy back the original guild headquarters back though?" Makarov asked

"One we don't even know how much it costs for all we know this reward money would cover the cost and let us buy it back, second we've got our title as strongest guild back so the increased notoriety will be a good money maker, and third if we all donated a bit of money combine it with the reward money we could get it back" Laxus answered

"Can't argue with that logic" Kat said

"My old man is just mad that he won't get some spending money for himself" Laxus explained

"Laxus how could you think so lowly of me?" Makarov cried out

"I need to get away from this" Laxus muttered walking away

"Laxus come back!" Makarov said following Laxus who broke out into a sprint to get away

"My they have quite the energy" Mavis chuckled watching Makarov trying to chase Laxus down

"Yeah but I don't think Erza is too fond of what's going on" Kat observed as Erza also joined in the chase to try and keep the two from distracting the rest of the guild who had all stopped to watch the strange scene

"But it's what makes this guild a one of a kind" Mavis said with a bright smile

"I guess, but a little order wouldn't kill them would it?" Kat asked

"Well with these guys it just might" Mavis laughed before abruptly stopping and looking at Kat "Wait you can see and hear me?" she asked

"So?" Kat asked

"I made it so that only people who had the Fairy Tail guild marker could see or hear me!" Mavis exclaimed

"My Master taught me how to see ghosts even if they don't want you to, apparently because they're known to work as spies so I would need to know how to see them just in case I made an enemy who knew a ghost" Kat explained

"That doesn't make sense!" Mavis said

"Which is what I thought, but I guess he was right I mean I am talking to you when normally I wouldn't be able to" Kat shrugged

"Well how does it work?" Mavis asked

"That's a secret" Kat said with a small smile

Mavis grumbled a bit before she looked back to see what the rest of the guild was doing; Erza had forced the Master into timeout and put Laxus back to work as punishment for distracting everybody else. He was displeased since it was Makarov who was responsible for the distraction but he didn't want to deal with Erza and Mirajane who had quietly managed to stop working a while ago and had joined Erza in overseeing everybody. Erza actually enjoyed the extra help since everyone else seemed afraid of an actual demon overseeing them and therefore worked even harder. Soon by the middle of the afternoon the entire park and the surrounding area had been cleaned up and finally Erza and Mirajane allowed everyone to take a break. Makarov in his grief over losing twenty five million jewel had neglected to tell everyone that the King had ordered a large celebration to thank the mages who had helped defend the city tonight. This piece of news was also able to wake up Natsu who had been sleeping for most of the day and got him extremely excited. Kat had planned on leaving earlier but she was convinced to stay for the celebration by both Natsu and Lucy.

"Alright but after that celebration I'm going off" Kat said

"Oh come on you couldn't stick around for a few more days? I was hoping for a chance to fight you seeing as you took on a dragon and won" Natsu sighed

"I have important things to do namely finding my master who's probably partying around in Ishval at this point so I'll have to decline your offer" Kat said

"Did you say Ishval?" Lucy asked remembering the warning from future Lucy's diary

"Yeah what of it?" Kat asked curiously

"It's just that… I need to talk to you guys about something I found out in my future version's diary" Lucy explained

"Wait future version?" Kat asked

"Yeah we were warned about the true nature of the Eclipse Gate from another Lucy who used the gate to travel to the present. That version of Rouge who I fought was also from the future" Natsu explained

"Wait so shouldn't we be like keeping an eye out on the present version of Rouge, you know just to stop whatever turns him into a homicidal maniac?" Kat asked

"That is something we should consider, but the note in the diary said that he wasn't the reason the world turned into such a bleak place" Lucy said

"Then what did, I thought the world was ruled by dragons in the future?" Natsu asked

"I don't know maybe the future changed, but instead of it being ruled by dragons the world is ruled by Tartaros" Lucy said

"Tartaros?" Kat asked

"They're one of the main dark guilds in the Balam Alliance, and after the dissolution of both Oracion Seis and Grimoire Heart they're actually the only one left" Natsu explained

"How did they end up becoming the rulers of the world?" Kat asked

"The diary says that they began their takeover in Ishval, it also said that if we wanted to stop them then that was where we would need to go" Lucy said

"Hmm we should bring this up with Master and see what he thinks we should do" Natsu said

"Man you guys are good at making me stay longer than I planned" Kat sighed

"What?" Lucy asked

"Based on what I've been able to learn about you from the last week or so, it's that inevitably you're going to Ishval to see what's going on. And since I planned on going there myself it makes sense that we work together for the time being" Kat explained

"That means we can fight right?" Natsu asked while cracking his knuckles

"I guess but not now" Kat said

"Natsu is your mind only focused on fighting?" Lucy asked disapprovingly

"There are other things it focuses on, fighting just happens to be the most important thing right now" Natsu explained

Kat and Lucy looked at each other before bursting out into laughter leaving Natsu in a state of confusion; they decided that they would tell the Master about the diary entry after the celebration… if he was still awake or not hung over that is. The celebration was held in Mercurius and it looked like the king had pulled out all the stops for the party which amazed everyone. Somehow they had managed to decorate the interior of the palace, and had put together a feast that easily could have fed a large army for a week. Kat wondered if this wasn't a waste of money especially since the city hadn't even been fully repaired from the attack, but figured it wasn't worth it to try and give the king policy advice. Everyone had shown up and after a quick speech by the king and his daughter that thanked everyone for all their hard work, the party began. It was a joyous affair and everyone was having a great time: Cana and Bacchus had another drinking contest to settle once and for all who could handle more alcohol, the exceeds got together which was a convenient excuse for Happy to brag about how great Natsu was, while the men of Blue Pegasus were busily flirting with every woman in sight it seemed although Ren was sitting next to Sherry pretending he wasn't into her the entire time. Everyone was having a good time except for Kat who left a half hour into the party to take a walk outside although she was sure to take a few drinks with her. It was cool outside and Kat felt like sleeping under the stars which seemed brighter than they normally did; during her walk she noticed Cobra who was investigating the flowers with keen interest.

"I doubt that the King of Fiore has poisonous flowers just growing right outside where he sleeps" Kat said walking up to him

"Doesn't hurt to check" he answered "And no I'm not crazy for thinking the King of Fiore would have these flowers growing outside" he said

"I didn't say that" Kat said

"You thought it though and I can hear it, I can hear all your thoughts" Cobra replied

"How can you hear thoughts?" she asked

"Magic" he answered

"No shit, what type of magic?"

"Sound magic"

"That's descriptive"

"It is what it is" he answered "I never thanked you for giving me a poison boost while I fought that rock dragon"

"Don't mention it, I got lucky"

"It doesn't matter if you were lucky, you didn't have to give me the poison but you did anyway and it was the reason I'm still alive. So to me it's worth mentioning"

"If you say so" Kat dismissed

"You really have a problem with taking praise don't you?" he asked

"It's a lesson my master pounded into my brain… literally, but basically I don't take praise I think I don't deserve. Getting a lucky spin on my revolver doesn't really warrant any praise, any idiot can spin a cylinder" Kat explained

"There are ways to improve your odds, understanding how much force is needed to get the result you want makes it much easier which is something you clearly understand how to do" Cobra said while smelling a flower for any poison

"I don't always get it right though" Kat dismissed

"It's extremely difficult to judge how much force you would need to spin a cylinder to get the result you want, the fact that you were in a combat situation makes it that much more difficult. Taking all that into account, I'd say it's extremely impressive that you managed to land on the right cylinder…twice" Cobra explained before biting the flower "Told you there'd be one with poison in it"

"Well I guess they managed to miss one" Kat shrugged

"Don't forget what I said earlier though" Cobra said

"Yeah yeah, so why'd you leave the party?" Kat asked

"I can hear everything and it gets a bit much when there's that many people in a single room, I had to leave so I could maintain my sanity" he explained "What about you?"

"Not a fan of parties" Kat said

"What's your excuse? Super powerful hearing as well?" he asked

"Too many people in there" she answered

"So?"

"I'm not a fan of crowds"

"Well I can see you're being vague on purpose… even your thoughts are extremely vague so I can tell you're not in the mood to answer these questions"

"You're very perceptive"

"The sarcasm is strong with this one" he muttered

"So what're you going to do after this?" she asked

"Well I was in prison before this, but two guys let me out just so I could fight these dragons. However they didn't really get permission from the higher ups and since my job is complete I'm looking at a one way trip back to my cell. So the obvious course of action is for me to leave before that happens, maybe I'll go to a different country and settle down there"

"You've got a fun life ahead of you then" Kat said

"The sarcasm is very strong with this one" he repeated

"You'll do fine I'm sure"

"Thanks I guess, well I better go then"

"You're leaving now?"

"What better time than when the two guys who'll probably arrest me are sitting drunk on their asses? If they wake up tomorrow they'll be far too hung-over to do anything so that should give me a good enough head start" Cobra said picking another flower and eating it before getting up "Hmm looks like there are people looking for you"

"What?" Kat asked before turning around to see a group of people approaching them

"Kat there you are, we were looking for you but you wondered off" Lucy said

"Sorry, but I'm not a fan of these types of parties" Kat explained

"Eve says he's sorry for flirting with you earlier…well we think he said sorry it was kind of hard to tell seeing how dizzy he was" Gray said

"Tell him I'm sorry for throwing him into a wall, probably overreacted on that one but I'm not really used to people flirting with me" Kat said with a sheepish smile

"Well if you're around Blue Pegasus you can expect a lot of that to happen" Gray answered topless

"Um, how'd you lose your shirt?" Kat asked

"What?" he exclaimed

"You should also get used to Gray randomly losing articles of clothing every now and then" Lucy sighed

"Why don't you come back in? Most of the people in there are either too wasted to do anything or left to do other things" Mirajane said

"I guess it wouldn't hurt" Kat said "Oh he's gone" she noted when she turned around to say bye to Cobra

"Who were you talking to?" Gray asked

"He's gone so it doesn't matter" Kat said as she walked past the group back into Mercurius

Just like Mirajane had said the main hall of Mercurius was mostly empty except for the people who were knocked out cold and sleeping on the floor. Somehow Cana and Bacchus were still in the middle of their drinking contest with neither one showing signs of giving up; apparently the king had also drank himself to sleep and had been taken to his room to rest. Mavis had gotten herself into a tipsy state which confused Kat who wondered how ghosts could get drunk; Makarov, Laxus, and Jura were conversing with each other while Gajeel and Natsu were having an arm wrestling contest to try and prove which one was superior as their other six contests were inconclusive. Kat sat down and got something to drink, started talking with both Lucy and Mirajane, and later got into her own drinking contest with Elfman who she wiped the floor with. The party came to an end a few hours later and Kat found herself the only person sober enough to walk around the place without falling over every five seconds. Evidently Cana and Bacchus' drinking contest had ended in a draw, Natsu and Gajeel were both asleep but it looked like they were still arm wrestling somehow, and in fact she was the only person still awake at this point. She did her best to not bump into any of the sleeping figures as she moved to go outside where it would probably be better to fall asleep. As she walked past the fallen Sabertooth mages she noticed that Rouge was missing, his cape was still on the floor and Frosch was sleeping on it so he had obviously been sleeping there. She shrugged assuming that he was in another place and had left his cape for his partner to sleep on; she finally managed to get outside without waking anybody up but not without accidently kicking a few people. She began looking for a soft patch of grass to lie down on for the night but instead found what looked like a ribbon lying on the ground; a closer inspection showed that it was Rouge's ribbon. She wondered if he was alright, but figured that he could have easily met someone and they had gone off for some privacy granted that meant there should have been a trail of clothes nearby. Finally she decided that a little investigating wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, if she found nothing then she could go to sleep without any worries until the morning if Rouge didn't turn up. She turned around a corner and stopped for a moment as she could sense magic still present in the air and moved forward cautiously.

"Hmm, shadow magic which definitely means Rouge's been by; guess that means he didn't find someone to spend quality time with…unless they're into that sort of thing" Kat muttered

She suddenly stepped on something hard and went down to see what it was; it was a spent shotgun spell that for some reason had some traces of magic on it which confused her. Normally magic bullets didn't leave shells which were one of their benefits the downside being that magical bullets weren't that effective at killing people. She put it in her pocket and continued forward; she found several more spent shells that were the same as the one in her pocket making it clear that some sort of battle had happened between Rouge and an unknown assailant. She focused magic to her eyes and saw two trails of magic jumping around before they suddenly went in the same direction albeit one trail slightly ahead of the other. Rouge's trail was fairly easy to spot (the pitch black color was a telling sign); the other trail was difficult to spot as it had a colorless hue almost like someone was actively covering up their trail. She followed the trails as fast as she could as the alcohol was preventing her from going into a full sprint let alone a jog which was difficult enough for her. Several times patrolling guards asked her if she had gone insane but she ignored them all as she wanted to find Rouge and the unknown assailant as soon as she could. The trail snaked on throughout the city and Kat was beginning to wonder how long it would go for; eventually Kat found that the trail went out of the city.

"Jeez they really didn't want to be seen, either this is one hell of an affair he's having or something else that is much less hilarious" Kat muttered as she found that suddenly Rouge's trial seemed to be coming to an end while the other one went off a bit longer before disappearing altogether.

Whoever the assailant was they clearly knew what they were doing and Kat was forced to end her pursuit and go find where Rouge was. The area was strangely covered in vines and other flowers most of which were definitely not native to the region making Kat more worried about Rouge. Finally the vines began to mass up so much that she was forced to find an alternative route around them, although she wasn't prepared for the sight she was about to see.

"Dear god what the fuck happened to you?" Kat said as she finally finished cutting herself a path.

Rouge was surrounded by the same types of vines and flowers she had seen earlier only this time they vines were moving around him. Rouge was unconscious and it looked like the vines were doing something to bad to him because Kat could feel his magic slowly being drained away. She acted quickly taking her knives and hacking through the vines although she was shocked that the vines were repairing themselves as soon as she had finished cutting through them. She tried grabbing the broken pieces but found rather painfully that the vines would grow thorns that stabbed her hands whenever she tried.

"Great looks like either I rip up my hands helping him or he's drained of everything and killed, well this is sadly an easy decision for me" Kat muttered

She began the meticulous process of cutting the vines and then throwing them away each time she grimaced in pain as the vines kept cutting into her, but she kept pushing through. Eventually she couldn't feel anything with her left hand which either meant that she had severed a nerve or had gotten used to the pain, she hoped for the latter as she almost finished freeing Rouge. She finally cut the last one and dragged Rouge away from the vines as fast as she could; after she was sure they were safe she looked at the red mess that used to be her hand. The thorns had done their work and she was losing a good amount of blood, she needed to cover the wounds now but wasn't sure to where to find any bandages. She noticed the hanging pieces of cloth covering Rouge's legs and shrugged before cutting pieces of it off to cover her hands with.

"Don't think this makes up for me saving your sorry ass, but it is a start" Kat told the unconscious Rouge "Why am I talking to you?" she wondered

She finished applying the makeshift bandages before picking Rouge back up and heading back to Mercurius to get him some help. She past the same set of guards who again wondered what we she was up to and again she ignored them and continued onto Mercurius. Rouge was a bit heavier than she had expected and she labored to get back to the palace, but knew that finding anyone who could actually help would be… difficult as hell seeing as they were all partied out. She dropped him unceremoniously on the ground to take a break by the time she reached the palace; she popped her back before picking him up again to find someone to help him out. She had a general idea of who the healers were but wasn't sure if they could help him seeing as magic loss was his problem, strangely the vines hadn't actually damaged him physically which annoyed Kat a bit who was still feeling the effects of the thorns.

"Get off your drunk asses and help this man!" she yelled as she kicked open the doors of Mercurius startling awake a number of people

"What's going on, who's yelling so loudly?" Gray asked while letting out a loud yawn

"It's way too early to deal with this stuff" Elfman muttered

"Ha! Salamander your arm went down which means I win" Gajeel yelled out victoriously

"That's not fair I was trying to get awake!" Natsu protested

"Do any of you know what time it is?" Makarov asked grumpily

"Yes it's early in the fucking morning and Rouge's nearly dead!" Kat yelled out as everyone was being too slow for her "Any more questions?"

"Rouge's nearly dead?" Sting exclaimed running up to where Kat and Rouge were

"Here you go, I'm tired of carrying him anyway" Kat said as she was glad to get Rouge off her back

"What happened to him?" Sting asked

"I found him being drained of his magic by these weird vines and flowers, I managed to cut him out and get him back here before he was sucked dry" Kat answered

"Who did this to him?" Makarov asked walking closer to Rouge to see what happened

"Don't know, but whoever did this knew what they were doing because the moment they had tied Rouge up, they left and made it impossible for me to track them down. I don't know how long Rouge was trapped in those vines, but I got there before he was killed anyway" Kat explained

"We need to get him to Porlyuscia she was the one who treated Wendy when she went through the same illness" Makarov said

"What are we waiting for?" Sting asked picking Rouge up "Lead the way!"

"She probably won't be happy that I'm waking her up this early though" Makarov said

"Old man there's a life at stake I'm sure you could stand to get yelled at by her" Laxus said finally being woken up by Jura

"But she yells really loudly" Makarov said still deep in thought

"You're going to let him die just so you won't get yelled at?"

"Fine let's go" Makarov sighed leading Sting at this point was in a state of panic over his friend's life

"Fro's worried about Rouge" Frosch said worriedly

"Don't worry Fro; he's going to get better soon!" Lector encouraged

"Porlyuscia's on the case, she might not seem like the most likeable person but she's great at healing people and I'm sure she'll take care of Rouge" Happy added

"Alright" Fro said partially encouraged by their words

Everyone else took a few minutes to get up as they were still suffering from the effects of the party, but word that Rouge was attacked in the middle of the celebration soon got everyone up and moving. Kat had to explain multiple times how she had managed to track Rouge down and the state that he was in when she found him. However everyone was still confused over the living vines that Kat had told them about; Hibiki had used his _Archive Magic_ to try and figure out what the magic was but no results came up. Lucy summoned Crux to research what the magic could have been although if it wasn't _Celestial Spirit Magic _he wouldn't be able to do much. Nobody was sure what to do at the moment: there was no way to track down the assailant, they couldn't do anything to help Rouge, and until they figured out what the strange magic was they couldn't find a way to counter it.

"Thanks for the healing kid" Kat said as Wendy worked on her hand

"Don't mention it, but it looks like those vines did a number on your hand" Wendy responded

"That's an understatement" Kat muttered

"Why would they attack Rouge though?" Natsu asked

"It doesn't make sense" Gray said

"And attacking him in the middle of a celebration, that's not manly at all" Elfman said

"All done" Wendy said

"Good as new, nice work" Kat said impressed with Wendy's efforts

"It was nothing" Wendy said cheerfully

"Maybe it had something to do with that Future Rouge?" Erza asked

"What do you mean?" Natsu asked

"Maybe they thought that by killing Rouge in the present they would prevent that future" Erza theorized

"Then why didn't they just stab him with the vines instead of trying to drain him?" Kat asked

"Who knows" Erza sighed

"There's Master maybe he'll know what to do" Elfman pointed out

"How is he Master?" Natsu asked

"Well after a good yelling, Porlyuscia said he's not going to die and that she'll do her best to make sure he recovers soon" Makarov answered

"Lucy maybe it's time to tell him what you read in your diary" Kat whispered

"I guess now would be the best time" Lucy agreed "Master can I talk to you about something?"

"What is it?" he asked

"It's something I read from my future counterpart's diary and it's important" she answered

"Can it wait?"

"It can't"

"Alright let's hear it"

"Okay" Lucy nodded before explaining what the diary entry had stated

"This is worrisome indeed, Tartaros apparently has been strangely quiet these last seven years" Makarov said

"They've probably been accumulating power until they could make a move" Kat said

"Maybe they're the ones who did this?" Erza asked

"I'M DONE!" Crux suddenly yelled out startling everyone

"Did you find something out?" Lucy asked after managing to calm herself down

"These vines have been seen several times throughout history by Celestial Mages and Spirits" he started

"Do they know what they meant?" Lucy asked

"Well most of the mages were killed by the vines and the spirits were drained of their power when they came in contact with the vines, not much else is known about these things." Crux said

"When were these vines reported being seen?" Kat asked

"Within the past twenty five years" Crux said

"So it's a human using these vines then?" Gray asked

"Maybe it was somebody from Tartaros then" Makarov said deep in thought

"What was from Tartaros?"Ichiya asked having listened to the conversation

"We were wondering if whoever attacked Rouge might have been from Tartaros, the diary Lucy is holding mentions that Tartaros will try to take over the world from Ishval" Makarov answered

"Ishval? That's a place wrapped up in secrecy, it does make sense that Tartaros might try to take over the country first seeing as not many from the outside know what's going on in there, but they'd have to deal with the Gods of Ishval, guys who are on a much different level than normal people" Jura said

"I'd love to test that out" Natsu said

"You're not the only one who'd love to see if those guys are legit" Laxus responded eagerly cracking his knuckles

"Don't get too cocky just because you beat me in a fight, they'd easily manhandle me in a fight" Jura warned

"But can we really go investigating Ishval? After all that might be considered an act of war I highly doubt the Council would just approve of this" Makarov said

"Just ignore them, when has the Council ever done anything right" Mavis said

"Can we just do that though?"

"It's easy you just go to Ishval without telling them" Mavis said

Makarov sighed at her willingness to ignore rules, as much as he wanted to just go off to Ishval the Council had been showing signs that they wouldn't tolerate any more independent action by Fairy Tail, even if it was destroying a dark guild. If he had the backing of the other masters then perhaps he could have a bit more leeway with the Council since they probably wouldn't want to disband multiple guilds. He called a quick meeting with the rest of the present Guild Masters, after that they could come up with a plan on what to do. In the meantime everyone else was left to chat once again, Kat wandered off on her own to find a place to sleep, it was still early and she had gotten little to no rest and was exhausted. However the "quick" meeting turned out to be quicker than she was hoping for, all the masters were quick to agree that something was up in Ishval that would need independent investigation on their part.

"Now we're not all going to walk in there that would be extremely suspicious, it's going to be like last time where we send in a few teams to do the work" Makarov started

"Who's going?" Lyon asked

"Lyon, be respectful of you elders or I'll be spinning you around!" Ooba yelled out shutting him up immediately

"That'll show him" Gray thought with a smirk that irked Lyon

"First from Fairy Tail: Laxus, Natsu, Erza, Gray, Lucy, Wendy, Gajeel, and Mirajane" Makarov said

"But what will Juvia do without Gray!" Juvia protested

"You could always join Lamia Scale" Lyon said

"Would you shut up" Gray sighed

"From Quatro Puppy: Bacchus" Goldmine said

"What just Bacchus?" several members protested

"Don't worry boys I'll be fine. Can't wait to get me some alone time with Erza and Mira" Bacchus said happily

"Don't get your hopes up" Erza sighed

"From Mermaid Heel: Kagura and Milliana" their master announced

"From Blue Pegasus: Ichiya and his boys!" Bob announced excitedly

"Men, we will bless Ishval with our lovely parfum" Ichiya said doing a dance with Hibiki, Ren, and Eve providing backup for him

"From Lamia Scale: Lyon, Jura, and Chelia" Ooba announced spinning an unfortunate mage who had questioned her judgment

"What about Sabertooth?" Natsu asked

"I'll go" Sting said walking back in "I'm not going to let whoever did this to Rouge get away with this"

"I'll go too, I can't just let our prospective Master leave on his own" Orga announced

"Oh and in the miscellaneous category: Kat" Makarov remembered

"Miscellaneous?" Kat wondered "Whatever as long as we're going"

"It's settled then, I know it'll be difficult but everyone should go to sleep for now before you head off tomorrow; in the meantime we'll make sure the Council doesn't get suspicious about what we're going" Makarov said, they all nodded and went their separate ways to find a place to rest

"Third do you mind if I make a request" Mavis asked

"Of course you can" he answered

"I want to go with Natsu and the others" she declared

"Eh, why? It's not that I can stop you, I'm just curious" he asked

"Because I know Tartaros more than anyone here ever will, I'm sure I can help them out" she explained

"Wait how do you know Tartaros?" he asked confused

"Let's just say that before I made Fairy Tail, I called the members of Tartaros my family"


	6. To Ishval

In hindsight going through the mountains was much easier than going through the heavily guarded road into Ishval, although Natsu and Gajeel were fine with the idea of fighting their way through the guards. It wasn't hard for the group to get into Ishval through the mountains; the "beasts" guarding the area was nothing more than a few giant animals that Jura had no trouble with. In fact the most dangerous thing that happened to anyone in the group was Natsu tripping over a pebble and tumbling down the last hill into Ishval, besides a few lost hairs he was fine although he had suffered motion sickness the entire roll down which gave everyone a good laugh. They took their time getting to Natsu who still hadn't recovered from his rough tumble; when they finally got down Wendy and Chelia checked on him to see if he was still alive. The team was forced to wait until Natsu was ready to move again, in the meantime Kat and Milliana were sent to scout out the area to make sure there were no guards nearby. They had decided to split up to cover more ground; Milliana had taken the western part of the area while Kat was left with the eastern part.

"Looks like we're safe for now" Kat thought to herself as she crouched behind a bush scanning the area

"Are you sure? There could be ghosts like me wondering around you know" Mavis said suddenly appearing behind Kat

"Why are you sneaking around? And how did you know what I was thinking…can you also hear my thoughts like Cobra?" Kat asked in a hushed tone

"I'm not sneaking around I'm floating around, second I read minds…which is a fancier way of saying that yes I can hear what you're thinking" Mavis explained

"Leave me alone kid, I'm busy" Kat said dismissively

"Who are you calling a kid?" Mavis asked clearly annoyed

"The other ghost who's wondering around, who do you think?" Kat muttered sarcastically "Now would you please go away, I'm pretty sure if anyone saw me they'd think I was crazy right about now"

"That's your problem for engaging in a conversation with a ghost, besides I'm bored I need to do something otherwise I'll go crazy!" Mavis exclaimed

"Not my problem" Kat muttered

"Give me something to do, I could scout a lot better than you can because I'm a freaking ghost! Nobody can see me unless I want them to, well besides you but you're a weird exemption" Mavis demanded

"Fine how about you go and scout the main road for me?" Kat asked getting tired of Mavis

"Okay!" Mavis said happily flying off

"How did she end up forming a guild on her own?" Kat muttered not noticing Milliana approaching her

"Was there someone here or were you just talking to yourself?" she asked startling Kat

"Oh… hey uh there wasn't anyone here I was just bored is all, yeah I was bored which is why I decided to talk to myself" Kat replied as if it was perfectly normal

"Okay then… just came back to say that there was nobody on my end" Milliana replied unsure of Kat's sanity

"That's good to know, all clear on my end too" Kat replied quickly

"So I guess we should go back then" Milliana suggested

"I guess so" Kat said before remembering that Mavis was still scouting "Actually how about you head back and I'll stay here a bit longer?"

"Whatever you say" Milliana shrugged not wanting to deal with whatever Kat was thinking about doing

Kat sighed after Milliana left and began wondering why she had joined the group in the first place; she didn't like how slow they were moving and half the group had no concept of moving stealthily…especially the Fairy Tail mages and Bacchus. On her own she wouldn't have worried about being captured or leaving a trail, she was too smart to do something that stupid; however with a group of this size it was difficult for her to make sure that nobody could follow them. It didn't help that there was a ghost that only a few people could actually see, it made communications very awkward as she had recently found out; but she knew that there was no point in thinking about what could have been. She was however getting bored of waiting for Mavis who was taking too long for her liking and as time went on Kat was getting a bit worried wondering what was taking Mavis so long. It was better for the group to get moving rather than continuing to wait near the borders which made them look extremely suspicious; finally she figured it wouldn't hurt to look for Mavis as long as she was careful to remain unseen. She did a final check to make sure nobody was around before she left the bush and quietly moved towards the main road, but when she arrived there was no sign of Mavis. She began casually walking on the road figuring that sneaking around would guarantee that someone report them, and she walked ahead passing a few travelers who greeted her, but didn't see her in any suspicious light…or so she hoped. After a few minutes of walking down the long path she found Mavis who instead of scouting was busily playing with what looked like a wolf cub; Kat checked around to see if anyone was watching before calmly walking behind Mavis who seemed to be enjoying herself greatly.

"Having fun?" Kat asked with a sweet voice that made Mavis jump up in fright (more like floated up in fright, but you get the point)

"I'm uh…scouting ahead like you asked" Mavis responded after a few moments

"Really, and is this adorable little wolf cub giving you any information worth sharing with the rest of the group?" Kat asked while petting the wolf cub who gave her a bite making Kat retract her hand

"No" Mavis sighed

"So why in the world would you be playing with this thing rather than doing what I asked you to?"

"Because I didn't see anybody and I got really bored, but then this cute wolf cub wandered out and came to me so I decided to play with him….and maybe help him get to his mom which is why I think he approached me in the first place" Mavis explained

"Well if it makes you feel better there's his mom over there" Kat pointed out as a large white wolf came out of the bushes growling at Mavis

"Why's it growling at me?" Mavis asked

"Because most adult animals know that spirits are usually evil, and when a mother sees one playing with her cub whom she's already ultra protective of…well you see where I'm going with this" Kat explained as she took out her pistol

"But shouldn't it be growling at the person it can actually kill?" Mavis asked slowly positioning herself behind Kat

"Well unlike you I'm standing my ground…also wolves respect guns for some reason" Kat said as the wolf watched her for a few seconds before moving to its cub, picking it up with its mouth, and retreating back to the forest

"Well that's over with, let's get going then" Mavis said with a bit of relief in her voice

"Don't think I've forgotten about you goofing off" Kat said walking back to where the rest of the group was

"I was hoping you would" Mavis muttered as she followed Kat

They walked back to where the rest of the group was without any incident although Kat did have to stop Mavis from playing with any animal that walked by them. She saw Jura, Kagura, Lyon, Gray, and Laxus all talking before they saw her and called her over; apparently the rest of the group had been wondering about Kat's whereabouts after they couldn't find her where Milliana had told them Kat was. Kat quickly explained that she had gone ahead to scout the main road to see if there were any patrols around leaving out Mavis' involvement entirely.

"So it looks like Ishval still doesn't expect people to get past the border, they just let the Pergrande Kingdom do all the work, it does save on money though" Jura said

"So it seems" Kat replied

"Well Natsu's finally up so I say we keep going" Gray said

"How do you propose we go though? After all there are a lot of us here, we'd certainly draw some stares if we all went as one big group" Lyon asked

"That's true, maybe we should split into groups and all meet up in the capital city" Kagura offered

"Capital city?" Kat asked

"Right, you weren't here for Jura's explanation of this country" Kagura remembered

"I've been here before back when it was announced that there was a new God of Ishval, the ceremony requires all the active Wizard Saints to be present so I know this place a bit. The capital city of Kadessa is probably where Tartaros will make their move, it's really the center of anything exciting in this country" Jura explained

"So we just follow the main road and go there?" Kat asked

"Pretty much" Jura said

"Still seems kind of risky" Laxus muttered

"As long as we don't look suspicious nobody will know a thing" Jura replied

"It's like my master told me: 'If you act like you belong people won't question you at all, but act nervous even though you do belong and people will assume you're up to no good'" Kat said

"Smart master you had then" Kagura said

"Whatever you say" Kat responded dismissively

"Well I'll go get everyone else then" Laxus said getting up to gather everyone together

"While we're waiting Jura, you mind telling us a bit about the Gods?" Lyon asked

"Hmm, maybe later when we've all managed to make it to Kadessa and not when we're still worrying about being caught…besides I don't want to repeat myself multiple times" Jura said

"Fair enough" Gray said

"I will say this though; the Gods are far more powerful and dangerous than I am. In fact the only thing that stops them from taking over the world is each other, it's a very delicate balance between those four but so far they've managed to not go to war yet" Jura explained

This made everyone silent, if the only thing that could stop one of them was each other… what would happen if they fought a God without another's aid? They all quietly hoped that they wouldn't have to worry about fighting one of them, or even better that the Gods would all cooperate to destroy Tartaros. Laxus came back with the rest of the group and Jura told them about the plan, the group unanimously agreed as they were all getting tired of being forced to sneak around everywhere. They split up into three groups of seven (not including the Exceeds) and each group would go to the main path at different time intervals; they decided to meet up in the central square of Kadessa as it was easy to find and they could easily hide themselves in the crowd if they needed to. Each group went in five minute intervals to the main road that led to the capital and each was sure that nobody had seen them and that they were in the clear.

"Bang! You're dead" Silva said as she watched the groups move out with her gun's scope, she was wearing camouflage that let her blend into the hill she was lying on having watched the Fiore mages for quite some time.

"I told you to watch them, not shoot" the lacrima she had placed next to her said

"I didn't shoot anyone Master, I'm just bored of all this watching" she sighed

"Watching and learning about the enemy is extremely important!" he said

"Not as important as killing them" she countered

"Who said we're killing them?" He asked

"Isn't that what you do to enemies?" she asked

"Only when you have no other option, besides it's much easier to let other people do it or even better get your enemies to become allies" he answered

"So how will we do that?" she asked

"Easy now Silva, you just let me worry about that" her master said soothingly which only irritated her

"So do I continue to follow them?" she asked

"No, now that we know they're here it's time to do our proper roles as citizens of Ishval when we see trespassers in our beloved land…call the guards and let them deal with it. If all goes as planned then those mages will be on our side before we begin our takeover" her master said

"Whatever" Silva muttered, she sat up and picked the lacrima up, hung up before her master could give her any extra orders and made the call to the Ishvalan security force. After a quick explanation as to what happened and giving them the exact coordinates of where she had seen the trespassers she hung up, and took of her camouflage that had been bothering her all day. She had silver hair that reached the middle of her back, fair skin, cold grey eyes with a scar right above her left eye which was the only blemish on her face. She wore a dark red blouse along with khakis, she didn't bother with jewelry since it only got in the way or was unnecessary, she also rarely wore makeup since her missions required her to move quietly but she could still draw a double take without it. She kicked up her rifle and caught it easily with her right hand, she then strapped it to her back but it disappeared as soon as she let go of it, she picked up the discarded camouflage and left the area before the guards would come to check out the area.

Riza Blackburn sprinted ahead of her squad of armed guards straight towards the place where trespassers had been reported earlier. It wasn't often anything eventful happened while she was on duty and she was too excited to wait for her squad, whether they showed up didn't matter to her. All that mattered was the hunt for these trespassers; apparently there were a lot of them which only made the hunt more exciting. Adding to her excitement was the fact that getting to Ishval was an extremely difficult task: there were no trains into the country, the only road that led to Ishval was heavily monitored by the Pergrande Kingdom which bordered Ishval as Ishval had all but turned it into a protectorate, and the mountains were a natural border with dangerous beasts inhabiting said mountains. Basically making an illegal trip to Ishval required a lot of balls, determination, and beings strong or numerous enough to overcome the beasts. These trespassers represented people who could actually fight back against Riza and her guards, which is why she was so eager to meet them in person.

"Hmm nobody here" she muttered disappointedly slowing down to a walk to survey the forested area

"Commander please don't storm ahead like that, your brother would kill us if we lost you again and you know we can't keep up with you in our armor" her lieutenant said trying to catch his breath

"Then be like me and carry a weapon without worrying about all that heavy armor" she recommended

"Except none of us are as agile as you are, we actually need this stuff" he replied

"Then you'll have to live with me always getting ahead of you" she said with a playful smile much to her lieutenant's displeasure "Now fan out and search the area; I want any sort of clues as to who these guys are and see if you can find some damn footprints!" she ordered

The squad saluted before forming teams of two to search areas assigned by the lieutenant while Riza went off on her own to do some searching. The wind picked up a bit sending her long brunette hair all over the place; she sighed before quickly tying it into a ponytail and continued her search. Her green eyes scanned the area and quickly picked up footprints that were leading off eastwards, she followed the footprints careful not to tamper with them and found that they soon led to the main road. She frowned as it would be even harder to find these guys, but she supposed that was the joy of hunting the world's most dangerous game. She examined the footprints to get an idea of how many people had come: she figured there were at least ten of them one of which had brought a staff along it looked like from the drag marks, besides that there wasn't anything for her to work with at the moment.

"You think the idiots who reported this would have bothered to see who these guys were instead of just saying there was a break in" she muttered squatting down to see if there was anything she had missed

Meanwhile Lieutenant Harvey Ozaki was stuck coordinating the search parties as Riza had gone off on her own rather than doing her job. Many would have mistaken him to be the commander since he was always doing things like this and would wonder why Riza was even promoted to commander. She was barely twenty years old, didn't understand the chain of command, and usually left her lieutenant with the paperwork to file. However there was one thing nobody could deny and that was her tracking abilities, in her three year career there were very few people she couldn't capture, and the few that she didn't capture she killed with her own hands. Despite all the work he would inevitably be forced to do he liked serving under her command, she never acted like she was too good to talk to her squad, was always finding a way to do the job without sacrificing any of her squad, and did have a tendency to make hunting fun rather than a matter of national security. This playful attitude was a guise for the dangerous hunter that lurked beneath, a defining trait of the Blackburn family in fact. Looking at her you wouldn't tell that her she was a part of the most important family in Ishval: she dressed casually usually jeans, a colored shirt with a jacket over it, but she was oddly keen on wearing makeup which did make her even more attractive. His thought process was cut by one of the search parties who were calling for him to look at whatever they had just found.

"So what is it?" he asked

"Lieutenant we found a few strands of hair, a discarded canteen, a shirt, and a fish" one of the squad members reported

"A fish?"

"Yes sir an actual fish..." the other one said before trailing off

"Okay then, let's see the strands of hair then" Harvey said

"Here you go sir we already put it in a baggy"

"Pink? Who the hell has pink hair? Well it doesn't matter we'll use it anyway" Harvey said "What about the canteen?"

"It's just your common canteen, smells like it was filled with alcohol"

"What about the shirt?"

"Just a white button up shirt sir, nothing special about it really"

"To us maybe, but to our commander it might be the key to tracking down whoever tried sneaking into our land. Let's go" Harvey said

They picked up the other pieces of evidence including the fish which they had some trouble holding and went to report it to Riza. They found her still staring intently at the footprints and to the side she was tracing copies of them into the ground with her knife which made them stop for a moment in confusion. She could be so strange at times; Harvey walked up to her and poked her in the shoulder causing her to jump in panic and nearly slit Harvey's throat.

"The fuck is wrong with you?" Harvey yelled out

"The fuck's wrong with me? The fuck's wrong with you? I told you not to do that!" Riza yelled back

"Oh but it's so funny to see you freak out like that, well for everyone besides the guy who gets his throat nearly slit" one of the squad members laughed

"What were you doing anyway?" Harvey asked after calming himself down

"I got bored of trying to track these guys down and I figured you guys would find something eventually so I practiced my drawing skills" Riza explained which confused her listeners

"Um, anyway we did end up finding some clues although they don't really do much with regards to identifying who infiltrated our borders" Harvey said before nodding to the guards who presented the pieces of evidence

"A fish?" Riza asked with the same expression Harvey had earlier

"Yeah we brought it because it reminded us so much of our favorite commander" the guard said before he, the other guard, and Harvey started laughing

"Oh I get it!" Riza said with a bright smile before punching the guard in the face which sent him flying a good distance away

"Worth it" he muttered weakly before passing out

"Let's see what else you found: a canteen, a shirt, and pink hair hmm, well the pink hair certainly does narrow down the search I mean there are very few people in Ishval have this colored hair…it's unnatural really so there won't be that many people we'd have to watch" she noted "Any magic on these things?" she asked after a few moments

"Commander you know that you're the only person who can find that out" the guard sighed knowing how she would respond

"And don't you forget it!" Riza said much to Harvey's displeasure

"Just take out your weird handle thingy and scan the stuff" Harvey sighed

She smiled before reaching under her jacket to pull out a silver colored handle that was elegant in appearance albeit the design was very impractical for combat in Harvey's opinion. Riza touched the shirt with the handle which immediately turned into a bluish-white color; she then touched the pink hair with the handle and it promptly turned red like a blazing inferno, and finally she touched the canteen and the handle turned back into its silver color. She shrugged before telling Harvey to gather the rest of the guards so they could regroup, and had someone pick up the guard she had knocked out. She put the handle back under her jacket as she waited for the guards to go back; if she had to guess where the trespassers were going, the capital city of Kadessa was the best bet seeing as the other towns didn't have too much to offer in terms of excitement…or anything to do really. Finding them would be a different matter but as long as she had her handle with her she was guaranteed to catch them as she had all her previous prey; the guards finally formed up in front of her awaiting their orders. She told them that they were headed back to Kadessa immediately, they nodded and she led the march back to the city at an easy pace.

"I hope these guys can at least put up a good, otherwise this will be one boring hunt" she thought to herself

**Author's Note**

So if you remember my summary which voiced my displeasure at the direction Hiro Mashima was going with Fairy Tail…well time for more ranting on my part. I mean honestly Ultear can suddenly turn back time now? That's a big ass Deus Ex if I ever saw one. Oh and I love how only the mages could see the future thanks to her, I mean unless she managed to target only the mages which wasn't even her intention then why were the dragons not able to see the future as well? I don't like the fact that Fairy Tail is going the Bleach route of adding a bunch of unnecessary twists that don't make logical sense and sometimes contradicting earlier plot points, but hey what do I know I'm sure there's a reason Mr. Mashima is much richer than I am…okay ranting over.


	7. A strange land

Erza couldn't shake the feeling that someone had been watching them earlier, but she couldn't see anyone nearby or sense anyone for that matter. She didn't tell anyone as it was possible she was just feeling nervous about breaking into a country illegally and didn't want to worry everyone unnecessarily. As they made the long trek to Kadessa that feeling slowly went away and she felt calmer, but she was still wondering if someone had seen them and recognized them as illegal guests. Finally she decided there was no point in worrying about this for now, besides they were already close to the capital city and they needed to meet up with the other groups. Jura had shown her some mercy by not putting her in a group with Bacchus or Ichiya, but he ended up putting her with Natsu, Sting, and Gajeel and it was tough trying to get them all to shut up and keep walking. Chelia, Ren, and Kagura were the other members and Kagura was sick of the three dragon slayers' bickering and finally threatened to cut their heads off if they wouldn't shut up soon, the look on her face showed that she was serious and all of them hastily gave out an apology before keeping quiet.

"Thanks a lot for that Kagura" Erza said

"No problem, one of us was going to have to do that eventually I just happened to get sick of them first" Kagura replied

"The look on their faces was priceless though, I'm sure they thought you would actually kill them" Erza laughed

"I would have" Kagura said bluntly

"Really?" Erza asked

"That was a joke" Kagura said cracking a small smile

Erza gave an unsure laugh wondering if Kagura was actually joking earlier, but she also realized that this was the first time she had actually seen Kagura smile. Erza was happy that Kagura was a bit more willing to show some emotion rather than maintain her calm demeanor all the time. They finally saw a large gate that led to the capital city of Kadessa; it was a simple wooden gate with iron supports, there were guards lined up on the wall and most seemed to be drinking instead of actually watching the people go in and out of the city. They soon found out why though, as they entered the city they were met with the sight of thousands of people busily going through the city.

"Guess Jura wasn't lying when he said we could hide in the crowd" Ren said

"No kidding, but how are we supposed to find everyone there's no way we could just spot them in this crowd?" Sting asked

"We'll find them with love! As long as you have love you'll always be able to find each other" Chelia said happily

"You've been listening to Sherry too much" Ren sighed

"You should too, after all you two are engaged" Chelia replied

"We're not engaged, just resigned to being with each other forever" he muttered

"So engaged" Kagura summed up

"He'll never admit it though" Chelia said to Ren's ire

"Don't we have more important things to do, like I don't know find the rest of our team!" he exclaimed

"We'll figure out a way" Happy said

"Natsu, can you smell anyone?" Erza asked trying to get them back on topic

"I wish, there are too many different odors and they're all mixing up together in my nose there's no way I can find everyone else from here" Natsu said

"Salamander's right, we can't sit here and hope they come to us we need to search for them" Gajeel said

"Didn't Jura say we should all meet up in the Central Square?" Pantherlily asked

"He did, but where's the center of this place…it's huge!" Lector asked

"How about if one of us searches from above?" Happy asked

"The last thing we need to do is draw attention to ourselves, we'll have to do this by foot" Erza said

"We should stick together, no sense in splitting up again especially with no way to contact each other" Kagura said which everyone agreed with and they all moved into the crowd which had its own flow often times sending them to places they didn't want to go

"Maybe we should ask for directions?" Sting asked after they all managed to take refuge in an alleyway to escape the crowd

"Wouldn't that just make us look like outsiders?" Gajeel asked

"Not really, we can just say we came from the countryside or something like that and I'm sure they'd sympathize with us" Erza replied

"I don't think we have that country look though" Sting said as he examined the different styles of clothing everyone wore including Erza's armor

"Also it would be difficult trying to explain our presence in particular, I doubt anyone here knows what an Exceed is and seeing three of them might scare some away" Pantherlily pointed out

"You know at this point I feel like we're over thinking things" Natsu said

"Or maybe we're just not trying to get caught, meanwhile you're not able to think of anything because you're an idiot Salamander" Gajeel replied with a smirk on his face

"What was that?" Natsu asked as he and Gajeel butted heads

"You realize Kagura is about to cut both your heads off right?" Sting asked pointing to Kagura who had already assumed a fighting stance causing Natsu and Gajeel to back off immediately, they heard laughing and turned to see Lucy, Mirajane, and Orga who was barely keeping his laughter inside

"Do you guys have any idea of how silly you're acting right now?" Lucy asked with a disappointed look

"How long have you been watching?" Natsu asked

"Long enough" Lucy answered

"So what are you three doing here then?" Erza asked

"Jura asked us to look for you guys and bring you to where the rest of the group was" Mirajane answered

"He couldn't have waited for a few more minutes?" Kagura asked

"Well he said that twenty minutes of waiting was long enough, and with how you guys were acting just a few seconds ago I think he was right" Lucy answered

"He also wanted us to pass a message to you Erza" Mirajane remembered

"What did he say?" Erza asked curiously wondering why he didn't wait until they had all joined up

"He said that he's disappointed that you weren't able to get your group to where everyone else was, and that Laxus won't stop making fun of him for trusting you" Mirajane answered with bright look

"That man…if he and Laxus weren't so strong I'd rip their heads off" Erza seethed

"Sting, you clearly have a long way to go before you can become the master of any guild" Orga said knowingly

"Are you supposed to be my mentor now?" Sting asked

"I'd like to think so" Orga said with a large grin on his face

"I'm just surprised that Lucy had to save us, normally it's the other way around" Happy noted

"What did you say?" Lucy asked angrily charging at Happy

"Calm down Lucy" Natsu said quickly getting in the way, but Lucy threw him aside easily and was held back by Gajeel and Ren before getting to Happy

"Lucy's scary when she gets angry" Happy said hiding behind Pantherlily

"Come on just take us to where everyone else is already" Erza sighed as she was tired of dealing with her group

"Of course, right this way" Mirajane said

They waited a few moments for Lucy to calm down so Ren and Gajeel wouldn't be needed to keep her in check, then Mirajane led the group back into the flow of the crowd. They moved with the crowd at an easy pace: Orga was still teasing Sting and Lector, Ren was doing his tsundere style flirting with Lucy while Chelia lectured him for "cheating" on her cousin, while Erza and Kagura were both observing the city as they walked on. The buildings shared very few similarities with each other, like they were all designed by different people; the different architectural styles and colors gave a sense of individuality to the city which was impressive considering the size of Kadessa. It seemed almost as big as Crocus, while it didn't have as many flowers as Crocus the city made did make an effort to preserve nature evidenced by the amount of gardens, flowers, and trees that were in the city. The city and its inhabitants didn't look or act strange by any means which made Erza a bit confused as to why Ishval was very keen on limiting outside contact.

"Maybe all of this is a façade, and the city is darker than it shows? That's the only reason I can think of for explaining their border policy" she thought to herself

Finally they got to the Central Square after some walking, there was some grumbling from the others mainly asking why Jura would think this would be easy to find. They also noted that the crowd didn't have as many people as it started with which gave a sense of privacy and respect to those who were relaxing in the square. There was a large fountain in the middle that every few seconds shot off different colored spurts of water; children were playing all around the area but stopped to see a mage perform various tricks with fire much to their delight. Mirajane pointed to where Jura and everyone else were located although neither Kat nor Mavis was with them and took them to him.

"Did you give her my message?" Jura asked

"Oh yeah I heard it" Erza said barely concealing her annoyance at Jura

"Good, hopefully next time you won't disappoint me" he said with a half serious expression before he and Laxus started laughing

"Wait, you weren't serious?" Erza asked

"Of course not, I left you in charge of three idiots, a klutzy girl, and a guy who won't admit to liking anything…I'm surprised that you or Kagura didn't kill anyone though" Jura said

"There were threats made, but nobody was stupid enough to try me" Kagura said with what seemed like a regretful tone

"That's good, well since we're all here why don't we begin discussing how we're going to go about learning about Tartaros?" Jura asked

"Can we really discus this stuff out in the open?" Laxus asked

"You see how everyone seems to keep to themselves or their close friends? If it doesn't involve them the folks here tend to leave you alone, there's a respect for privacy…well to some extent anyway as long as we're not loud" Jura replied

"What about Kat?" Natsu asked

"She said she works better alone when it comes to these types of things" Eve answered

"What a strange girl" Milliana remarked remembering the last time she saw Kat alone

"Well whatever she's up to she said she'll come back to the hotel lobby around night time" Eve explained

"Alright then, well to start things off Hibiki will act as the command center for us in his hotel room where he hopefully won't be disturbed" Jura started

"That works but what if you need to give us information, if I remember right there were loading bars over our heads when you'd do that" Gray said

"Don't worry it's not like I've been doing nothing these past seven years, I've worked hard on my craft. I've optimized it for stealth purposes, so you won't need to worry about loud notifications alerting the enemy…the downside being that it takes a bit longer for you to receive the information" Hibiki explained

"Well we're in no rush right now so that shouldn't be an issue" Eve pointed out

"Should we keep anyone near him just in case?" Wendy asked

"Don't worry Wendy I'm more than capable of defending myself regardless of what the Grand Magic Games showed of my overall power" Hibiki said confidently "But if you insist on keeping people around me, may I request either Mirajane or Lucy?"

"Aren't you going out with Jenny though?" Ren asked

"You're engaged to Sherry and have no trouble flirting with other women, besides things between Jenny and I aren't that serious we're in an open relationship" Hibiki answered

"Just like I taught him" Ichiya said admiringly

"Not going to happen" Lucy said bluntly

"You're not really my type" Mirajane said with a smile

"That hurts" he said trying to put on a cute expression to gain some sympathy

"Alright so we've got our command center, are we all just going to split up and look around then?" Erza asked ignoring Hibiki completely

"Pretty much, this place is so huge we could all spend hours asking around and still not run into each other, but Hibiki will make sure that we've covered every part of the city instead of going to places where others have already gone" Jura replied

"When and where should we meet up?" Lyon asked

"We'll meet up in the hotel lobby we checked in at earlier" Jura answered

"Oh and don't worry about your group Erza we already checked you guys in" Laxus said tossing the room keys for Erza to distribute

"So nobody wants to keep me company?" Hibiki asked getting tired of being ignored

"Don't worry buddy I'll keep you company! Yeah it'll be great, we can drink together and pick up ladies at the bar…well I can anyway you'll be hard at work" Bacchus volunteered

"Well I-"Hibiki started

"A wonderful idea Bacchus, I'll join you besides it'll be a good time to compare our notes on charming women" Ichiya said

"But sir, aren't you already the master at that?" Eve and Ren asked

"One can never stop learning the art of pleasing a woman; one must always learn more so they can stay on top of their game. Do you understand?" Ichiya explained

"Yes Sir!" they both responded enthusiastically

"A great idea, Ichiya and Bacchus can keep Hibiki safe and have fun while we explore" Erza said happy to get rid of those two

"Have fun you three!" everyone else said as they all went in search of information

"What did I do to deserve this?" Hibiki moaned as he was dragged into the hotel by Bacchus and Ichiya

Everyone split up into small groups or went individually to different parts of the city; they waited until Hibiki had established his command center and could record what everyone was doing. Any frustrations over being stuck with Ichiya and Bacchus left Hibiki immediately as he devoted all his concentration to keeping up with everyone. It was a tedious task coordinating all their efforts but he was skillfully guiding everyone along to make sure they covered as much of the city as possible; the fact that he was doing this while Bacchus and Ichiya were both drinking and having loads of fun next to him made it more impressive. As more information was being gathered he began seeing a pattern about how the people viewed Tartaros: it was like Tartaros was just another guild to the people, it didn't bother them that they were classified as a dark guild. People were proud to know Tartaros members, and mages from guilds in Ishval spoke pretty nicely about the mages of Tartaros they knew. He noticed how nobody had ever seen the so called elite members of Tartaros or their Master in person not even Tartaros mages. This wouldn't make it any easier to track them down, but he did start to come up with a way of being able to narrow their search down for these elite members whom he gave a high priority of finding.

"Everyone listen to me for a few second" Hibiki started

"What's wrong, are Bacchus and Ichiya distracting you?" Chelia asked

"No they went back to the bar about an hour ago, from the noises I'm still hearing they're still down there" Hibiki answered

"Then what is it?" Wendy asked

"Well from all the information I've gotten from you all, it's that Tartaros is actually viewed in the same way people view legal guilds in general meaning that challenging them outright would be ill advised. Next is that the elite members and Master of Tartaros have never been seen, or if they have been seen then they haven't been associated with the guild at all" he explained

"How's that?" Lyon asked

"They have a different identification on them so you associate them with some other guild rather than Tartaros" Hibiki answered

"They wear different markers, then what's the point of being in the same guild in the first place?" Natsu asked

"I don't know why they do it Natsu, but they must have their reasons and whatever they are they can't be good. However because nobody's ever seen them before we don't know what these markers actually look, also there's the fact that we don't know that the other guilds in this area are so we can't just interrogate everyone without the normal Tartaros mark. That's why I need you guys to collect information on all the other guilds in the area specifically their guild mark and how many mages are in that guild" Hibiki said

"That shouldn't be too hard, all we need to do is say that we want to become mages of a guild and are just looking around" Gray realized

"That's a good plan, that's all for now" Hibiki said

"Got it" they all said before continuing their search

"What's this?" Hibiki muttered to himself as he counted the trackers he had on his map "One's missing, it's Erza I think what happened to her?" he said before deciding to wait a few minutes before asking anyone else what happened

Erza thanked the storekeeper who had graciously answered her questions without questioning her at all and even gave her a discount on a few snacks. She left, opened the bag of chips, and popped one into her mouth; it was good and soon she had finished the bag before she got to the next store to ask about Tartaros. She had noticed the same trend Hibiki would later realiz, namely that whoever these elite members were they isolated themselves from the rest of the guild for some reason. Perhaps they were doing the high level stuff and would call on the rest of the guild when they needed more muscle to fulfill their goals. But nobody had any idea of whom they were, some even wondered if they were just myths designed to make Tartaros look more powerful than they really were, either way her search for them was fruitless so far. Suddenly from the corner of her eye she could see someone watch her and turned around to see who it was; she saw someone in a hood beckon her over, she could see blue hair sticking out from the hood and immediately knew who it was.

"That idiot, what's he doing?" she sighed

"Everything alright Erza?" Hibiki asked her

"That's right, he's recording everything I'm saying and hearing" she thought "Everything's fine" she said

"You sure?" he asked

"Don't worry Hibiki, just focus on keeping Natsu and Happy focused on what they're supposed to do" she reminded him

"Yeah yeah" he sighed

"Here's my chance" she thought severing the connection she had with Hibiki's command center so she could talk in private

She went towards where she last saw the hooded figure and he was sitting at a table waiting for her and pointed at the seat across from him for her to sit which she did.

"You're an idiot you know that right?" she asked

"Why would you start a conversation this way?" he asked sullenly

"Because Jellal, you clearly don't understand the concept of stealth. There's no point in the hood if your very identifiable blue hair keeps poking out" Erza pointed out causing him to take off his hood

"Fine is it better if we just converse like this?" he asked

"No, because if Kagura sees you she might go berserk and kill you so keep it on…just don't move your head too much" she answered

"Don't move my head too much?" he muttered as he put the hood back on

"What are you doing here?" she asked

"Me and the gang snuck here after you guys to help out with the investigating, we're returning the favor for helping us back in Crocus." He answered

"So where's Ultear and Meldy?" she asked

"Keeping track of me to make sure I don't get in trouble, because apparently I'm the one who carries the most risk of causing an incident just by being present" he explained

"They are right" she said

"Hey, I'm trying to be a better guy" he said

"I know, but some won't forgive you easily" she said

"That's true, but that's not why I asked you to come here. I have some news about Tartaros since I know they're the guys you're after" he said

"What do you have to say?" she asked

"So you know how their elite members are unknown at the moment?" he asked

"You know how to find them?" she asked getting interested

"Nope, but I was able to find out that Tartaros has some major political power right now. There are a lot of powerful people who sympathize with them and don't like how the Council branded them a dark guild a while ago" he explained

"But they were branded a dark guild a long time ago, way before we were born" she pointed out

"Exactly, the sympathy for Tartaros has been existent for a long time and has only grown over the years as they're constantly portrayed in a positive light here which may be why Ishval is shall we say on bad terms with the Council right now. Be careful, we're in a foreign country trying to fight a guild that's popular with the people here if there's an attempt on them you'll only cause a war with Ishval" he explained

"Well this makes things a lot more fun" she sighed

"That's one way of looking at things, well that's all the info I have right now" he said while getting up

"What if we need to talk again?" she asked

"We're staying at a hotel that's a few blocks away from the one you guys are at, Ultear made sure that we would stay hidden for now. Anyway the hotel is some mix of purple and blue and the architecture is shall we say… postmodern so it's easy to spot" Jellal answered

"Take care" she said

"You too" he said before walking off

"Oh right, I'd better connect to Hibiki again otherwise he'll be worried, or worse send Bacchus and Ichiya to find me" she said shuddering at the idea before reestablishing the connection

"Erza there you are, what happened?" Hibiki asked with relief in his voice

"I talked to someone who didn't want to be recorded, I'm not that good at lying so I turned it off just in case" she lied noticing the irony in her statement

"Well it's getting late we're all meeting up in the lobby to discuss our findings" he said believing her lie

"I'll be there" she said before getting up and returning to the hotel that she had no idea of how to get to since she hadn't actually seen it before so she was really just wandering around to embarrassed to ask Hibiki, luckily she saw Kat who was in the middle of a rough interrogation it looked like however Mavis wasn't with her

"Nobody can save you, just tell me what I need to know and I won't shoot you in the face" Kat said with a bright smile

"I already told you, I don't know how to find them!" the unfortunate man exclaimed with tears coming out of his eyes

"Kat, be nice to the guy" Erza said walking up to the pair

"Why should I, he's been uncooperative the entire time trying to get me to pay him for stuff I already know. My master told me that the only way to deal with this type was a blade to the throat, and since all I have are guns I figured a gun to the head would serve the same purpose" she answered with the same smile

"Please help me" he begged Erza

"If you just tell her what she wants to know then we'll be on our way" Erza said

"See I told you nobody would save you" Kat said turning her attention back to the man

"I can't tell you!" he exclaimed

"You can't? Or won't?" Kat asked

"Same thing, if I tell you what I know I'll be killed!" he answered

"I knew you were lying earlier!" Kat said triumphantly

"Wait who'll kill you?" Erza asked

"They will!" he said after looking around

"Names I need names" Kat said

"If I say names they'll kill me, and then they'll kill you too! They own these streets, nobody knows it but they know everything that happens here" he said

"Tartaros?" Erza asked

"Among others yes" he replied fearfully

"Well if you won't give names, then how do they do it? Are we talking constant surveillance, info brokers, magic?" Kat asked still keeping her gun near his head

"Info brokers who know everything somehow, I'm just one of the underlings" he said

"Well how do we meet your employer?" Erza asked

"You don't, he meets you" he explained

"Who is he then?" Kat asked getting annoyed with the man's vague answers

"I don't know I've never met him like I said I'm not important enough to see him, all the information I get is passed down from the top to the bottom. I only know the guy who gives me my information, and that's it the organization is set on secrecy" he explained

"Now was that too hard for you to say?" Kat asked releasing the man from her grip and putting her gun back in its holster

"You're letting him go?" Erza asked

"That's all he'll tell us, besides no point in getting him killed since he could help us out later" Kat explained

"Well Hibiki wants us to meet up in the lobby" Erza said

"Alrighty" Kat said "You want me to take you there because you don't know where it is don't you?"

"That would be nice" Erza said with relief "By the way do you know where Mavis is?"

"Not really, I told her to leave me alone while I ask around so she wandered off" Kat explained

"Why did she follow you?" Erza asked

"Apparently because my speech and behavior remind her of someone she used to know so she wanted to hang around me until she remembered who that person was. Don't worry about her though, she's a ghost what's the worst that can happen?" Kat explained

"I guess you're right" Erza said

Kat led Erza back to the hotel they were all staying at; it was getting late and she noted that the amount of people walking around decreased by a lot, the place was almost like a ghost town. She shrugged it off and continued to the hotel, it was a very colorful one filled with many different colors, and the style seemed like the painters just threw their cans of paint at it and called it art. They went inside and everyone was in a conference room they had rented for privacy and so they could fit everyone in one room including Ichiya and Bacchus who were still unconscious from their drinking yet there was still no Mavis. Jura had ordered some food for everyone since it was around dinner time for everyone, with Kat and Erza's arrival they began their meeting. Hibiki started by uploading all the info he had collated into one file so everyone would remember it as it was highly important, and then he asked if anyone had anything else to contribute looking at Erza who could take a hint.

"I talked to someone who explained that apparently there are powerful people in the kingdom who support Tartaros and this has been going on for generations, so we need to be careful about pursuing their elites" Erza explained

"So it's not just the people huh?" Gray asked

"Nope, he also said that Tartaros is actively portrayed in a positive light to keep up their appeal to the people" Erza continued

"That's what I got from my last visit too, Tartaros has friends in high places which certainly adds to the possibility of a takeover sometime soon" Jura said

"Do we know when they'd make a move?" Milliana asked

"Not really the people are happy with life as it is, no reason to support a coup" Jura said

"But if something were to happen to show the weakness of the current kingdom…" Laxus started

"Then they'd be welcomed as heroes" Lucy finished

"Anything else?" Hibiki asked after he made sure he had recorded everything said so far

"Yeah, I got a guy to tell me some pretty important stuff" Kat said

"You pretty much threatened it out of him" Erza sighed

"Does it matter how I got it though? Besides I didn't kill the guy" Kat responded

"What'd he say?" Sting asked

"Something about a group of people who're monitoring everything that's going on and selling that information to Tartaros" Kat explained

"Who?" Natsu asked

"The guy doesn't even know the leader just that if he's interested in us he'll meet us not the other way around. But he seemed pretty fearful of naming any names because he said he'd be killed by them so they have some way of knowing what's going on" Kat explained

"Hmm so Tartaros gets their information from another group?" Hibiki asked

"Which means we need to talk to whoever these guys are soon and see what's going on too" Gajeel said

"But how?" Sting asked

"Ah! I'm tired of all this sneaking around why can't we just go and interrogate one of the Emperor's men" Natsu asked getting frustrated

"Because we'd be killed before we could do anything useful" Kat answered bluntly

"She's right, Natsu just bare with the stealth for some more time. I'm sure there are fights on the way" Mirajane encouraged

"Well if that's all" Hibiki started

"Wait, wouldn't this be a good time for Jura to talk about the gods to us?" Lyon asked

"Yeah, if we could get their help then beating Tartaros would be easy" Chelia said

"I guess there's no better time. Well as you know the Gods of Ishval are deemed by the Council as the four most powerful mages on Earthland, they're far more powerful than I am it would be like a child fighting a lion if I challenged one of them" Jura started causing some startled whispers

"He's that afraid of them?" Sting asked

"Not afraid, but respectful" Orga said

"And I had enough trouble with him, could I challenge them?" Laxus thought

"Quiet everyone, Jura keep going" Ichiya said having recovered from his hangover

"Thank you Ichiya. However just because they are called Gods of Ishval doesn't mean they're from Ishval it's a title that the Council granted to Ishval a while ago. The only way to become a god is to find and kill an existing god or to get them to surrender to you willingly after a battle, this is of course rules that Ishval came up with that the Council begrudgingly agreed on." Jura said

"Who'd try killing one of them?" Kagura asked

"Someone stupid that's who" Lucy said

"Or someone really strong" Natsu said

"All of the above actually. Well anyway I don't know too much about the current batch of Gods other than their names since I've never seen them fight and they're loathe to give away secrets. There's The Lawmaker Jaster known as Jazz, there's Zale who's one of the nobleman here, the Emperor's personal bodyguard Hayate Blackburn, and then there's the most recent addition to the batch…I don't know his name since he was keen on making sure nobody knew it for some reason so we just called him Nameless to annoy him" Jura explained

"How recent?" Kat asked

"One year ago, which was the last time I ever came here" Jura explained

"They sound like they have important positions, how would we talk to them?" Wendy asked

"It'd be very difficult seeing as we came here illegally, we'd have to deal with guards to talk to two of them and I don't know how to contact Zale or Nameless" Jura sighed

"Speaking of guards" Eve said pointing outside where a squadron of guards led by Riza Blackburn was talking to the receptionist

"What are they doing here?" Lucy asked fearfully

"Well if they're here to fight then I'm up for it!" Natsu said

"No you idiot, the last thing we need to do is fight the guards" Erza said

"What's that girl doing?" Kagura asked noticing how Riza was pulling a handle out from her jacket and pointing it at Natsu who she was eyeing with some suspicion

"Crap, I think they're onto us" Kat realized

"How, I thought we were unnoticed?" Milliana asked

"That handle is turning red, I think she's after you Natsu" Gray said

"Natsu there's a way out the back you can use, get out and find a place to hide" Jura ordered quickly

"But" Natsu started

"Natsu move now before that girl comes here with her squad" Erza said, Natsu nodded before he took Happy and went out the back as soon as he did everyone got up to form a human wall to prevent Riza and her squad from pursuing

"Out of the way good people, I think your friend snuck in here illegally and I'm going to arrest him and make him tell me who else came with him so I can arrest them. So if you wouldn't mind" Riza said as she tried to squeeze her way past everyone

"What are you talking about?" Kat asked playfully

"Please Ma'am this is official business so get out of the way otherwise we'll arrest you for obstruction of justice" Harvey said as he slowly pushed past everyone

"But what justice are we obstructing, the only proof you have is that your handle turned red which could mean anything" Mirajane said

"Look lady this handle has found more people than a bloodhound, it hasn't let me down before and it won't now" Riza explained as she finally pushed past everyone before sprinting out of the back door

The man didn't seem to be anywhere in sight, but his pink hair was sure to make him stick out in the night. Riza pointed the handle in different directions until it glowed that blazing red color and she followed the direction it was pointing. Meanwhile her squad had finally made it past that human barrier, but didn't see the culprit or their commander.

"Great, her brother's gonna kill us now" Harvey sighed

"Us? He's only going to kill you" one of the guards said

"All the more reason we need to find them" Harvey said as he ordered them to split up and find them at all costs

Happy could barely hold onto Natsu as he sprinted down the streets of Kadessa going to random streets to try and throw off his pursuer. Happy turned to see that Riza had somehow found them and was closing in on them quickly; Natsu noticed too and turned around to face her. He took a deep breath and fired a powerful roar of fire at her, but she stopped in her tracks and activated the handle she was holding. Natsu could hear a whirling sound and saw that the handle she was holding was glowing, and soon he saw a silver colored blade made of magical energy forming up and ended in what looked like a katana. The roar was about to hit Riza but she quickly stabbed the mass of flames with her blade, and to Natsu's shock the flames disappeared the moment they hit her blade. He smartly ran off before the roar had ended so by the time Riza had dealt with the roar Natsu had already made a hard left and was out of sight again. She smiled as the excitement over this hunt was getting to her and she sprinted off to find him; the game of cat and mouse continued for a while and repeated itself often: Riza would get close to Natsu who would use some version of a magical attack to distract her and he'd run off again.

"She just doesn't quit does she?" Natsu muttered after getting away for what seemed like the hundredth time

"She is persistent, but I don't know what we can do against that weird sword of hers" Happy said

"That's the problem, I can't attack her and she's faster than me so she'll always catch up. I don't know if we can fly away as we'd probably alert every single guard in the city and they'd shoot us down most likely" Natsu said "You got any ideas partner?" he asked

"None" Happy declared bluntly

"Well I guess we hope she tires out first, that or someone helps me out" Natsu sighed, he continued running until he heard someone call out to him

"Hey buddy you and your talking cat look like you're in some trouble" the voice said

"Who said that?" Natsu asked looking around

"I did" a man said who was leaning against a wall. He was around Laxus' height, had wild hair that was brown in color, yellow eyes, and was wearing a sleeveless black shirt with jeans

"What do you want, I'm kind of on the run right now?" Natsu asked

"I want to help you out, here put this on it'll make sure that Riza won't find you" he said tossing Natsu a cape

"Riza?" Natsu asked still staring at the cape

"The girl who's after you, one of Ishval's best trackers but with that cloak on she won't be able to see you that well" he explained

"But she has that handle to track me with" Natsu said

"Trust me it'll be too late by the time she figures that out" the man said

"I guess I don't have a choice" Natsu said putting on the cape

"Good, now follow me" the man said leading Natsu and Happy down the street at an easy pace

Just like he said Riza somehow didn't realize that Natsu was still in plain sight to her left, she cursed before continuing in her current direction. Natsu breathed a sigh of relief but was told by the man that they still needed to move quickly since she would return very soon.

"Where are you taking me?" Natsu asked

"To a man who can get you off the hook" the man said

"I see, what's your name?" Natsu asked

"Keji Stevenson, but just call me Keji" he said

"Okay, I'm Natsu"

"Nice to meet you" Keji said with a small smile

Natsu finally saw where Keji was taking him and Happy to hide out and he was shocked to see that it was a large mansion. It seemed normal compared to the other buildings he had seen, except that it dwarfed even the hotel they were staying at. There was a large gate that surrounded it, but Keji went up to it and after punching in a code it opened for them.

"Is it really okay if we hide here?" Natsu asked after getting over the building's size

"Of course it is" Keji said as he led Natsu inside the compound "Besides the dude who lives here wanted me to bring you here"

"What?" Natsu and Happy asked in surprise as Keji opened the door and beckoned them inside which they did

The mansion somehow seemed even bigger on the inside so much it made the one Lucy used to live in look like a small house. The mansion was well furnished and filled with many exotic things that Natsu had never seen before, but Keji took him to another part of the house before he could finish examining everything. It was a large living room filled with top of the line furniture that all looked custom made, Natsu noticed Mavis sitting on one of the couches which surprised him. She merely smiled and waved at him before pointing at a man who was sitting on a recliner and watching Natsu with some interest before standing up to greet Natsu. He was a few inches taller than Natsu, had ruby colored hair although there was some gray mixed in with the ruby that he kept very short, he had calm black eyes and his face was unblemished except for the wrinkles around the his eyes.

"Welcome to my house young one" the man said bowing to Natsu

"I should be bowing to you, you got that girl to leave me alone" Natsu said

"You won't need to worry about her anymore, I'll talk with her when she comes by and settle this whole thing out for you" he said

"Thank you very much" Happy said

"Wow, never thought I'd see an Exceed up close" the man said examining Happy

"You know what an Exceed is?" Natsu asked feeling somewhat suspicious of this man

"I know many things because I need to, otherwise I would have been killed a while ago. Kadessa is not a safe place for men of my ranking sadly" he said

"Your ranking?" Natsu asked

"He's one of the noblemen of the city" Keji explained

"But no need for titles or anything like that" the man said

"What should we call you then?" Natsu asked

"Just call me Zale"


	8. A New Ally

Riza was angry at herself for losing her target which rarely happened, especially in the night when said target had bright pink hair that was easily visible from a mile away. How he had managed to disappear from her sight while she was right behind him was beyond her, the only thing she cared about was finding him. She was forced to rely on her handle again to catch up to her prey; she noticed that strangely she was getting closer to him rather quickly, almost as if he had stopped in his tracks thinking he was safe…which annoyed her greatly.

"He really has no idea who he's messing with does he?" she muttered as she soon found herself in front of a large mansion "That explains it…oh crap this is Zale's mansion" she sighed

This complicated things a bit well actually by a lot, not only was Zale a nobleman of the city but he also happened to be one of the four strongest mages in the entire world. Unless she had enough evidence to warrant searching his house she would be faced with a world of legal trouble. To make matters worse her magical handle no longer constituted a sufficient amount of evidence according to Jaster, the Law Maker; it was a complimentary piece at best he told her. Riza couldn't argue back unless she was ready to face up against a god on her own, and since her brother didn't back her up it made her decision easy. However she had found that it didn't affect her as she now would either skip the legal system entirely or just kill whoever had crossed the border and save herself some time.

"Hmm, I guess I could barge in and ask Zale. What's the worst that could possibly happen?" she wondered as she climbed over the gate in a few quick steps

She landed softly on the ground, pointed her handle at the door, and it glowed a brighter red which indicated that the man she was after was definitely inside before she went up to the door. She knocked on the door twice and waited patiently for a response; after a few seconds of silence she rang the doorbell and waited a few more seconds before getting annoyed and began pounding the door loudly. Finally she could hear footsteps walking in her direction and soon the door was opened by Keji who had positioned himself to block her from entering, but that didn't stop her.

"Out of the way Keji" she said dismissively as she pushed him out of the way roughly and entered the house

"What are you doing? You know you can't enter here unless you have some evidence!" he yelled

"Who said I was searching for someone? Unless you were the one who helped my prey get away from me and are now hiding him here?" she asked

"It's usually why you come here in the first place" Keji answered as he now was walking beside her

"I still don't hear you denying that you helped an illegal visitor hide out here" she said

"Look we both know how this meeting will end, why not leave now and save yourself some time?" he asked knowing that it wouldn't stop her

"Doesn't hurt to ask, Zale has surprised us both in the past" she said as she navigated through the familiar mansion to the living room where Zale would most likely be at this hour. Keji made one last attempt to get in her way but again she pushed him out of the way before making her way into the living room. Sure enough there was Zale talking with her quarry and his weird blue cat, both tensed up when they noticed her looking at their direction; this got Zale's attention who gave her a warm smile before walking closer to talk with her.

"Ah Riza Blackburn, Ishval's finest hunter it truly is an honor to have you set foot in my humble abode once again" he started "Now my admiration for all the good you do for our country aside, I must ask why you saw fit to enter my house unannounced?"

"I hate to bring these accusations against you Zale I really do, but that pink haired man and that blue cat behind you entered into this country illegally and I'm simply here to arrest him…the cat too I guess" she answered

"By 'arrest' Natsu, she means torturing you until you name everyone else who came with you which would constitute as enough evidence for her to not be charged with brutality, then after she rounds up everyone she'll break a few bones if not kill a few of you and then dump what's left of your group in the Pergrande Kingdom" Zale explained to Natsu

"Is he lying or is he serious?" Natsu asked

"Oh he's serious, you see ever since laws were passed that go against Riza's favor when it comes to arresting people like you she doesn't even bother bringing illegal visitors in for a trial, she just deals with them on her own" Keji answered

"You know me so well" Riza said cheerfully

"Indeed I do, which is why I've decided to put Natsu and his friends under my protection during their stay in Ishval" Zale said

"What? That's not fair!" Riza exclaimed

"Life's not fair" Keji said with a smirk

"And besides as I recall you do owe me a favor helping you out in one of your hunts" Zale said

"I was hoping you wouldn't remember, but fine just be warned that anything they do can and will be linked back to you" Riza said before turning around to leave the mansion

"What does that mean?" Happy asked finally feeling safe enough to stop hiding behind Natsu

"It just means that you and your friends will still have to be careful about what you guys do, since Zale is vouching for you guys doing something bad will hurt his reputation" Keji answered

"Don't worry yourselves about that, I'll be fine" Zale assured

"So what are you here for anyways?" Keji asked after making sure Riza had left

"Well…" Natsu started not sure if he should answer the question

"It's okay Natsu, these people are trustworthy. Besides it wouldn't be right of us to lie to them especially when they've offered us their protection, and it'll give them some warning on what to expect from us so they can prepare accordingly" Mavis said

"Well if you say so" Natsu said remembering how she could look at people's hearts and judge them for what they truly are "We're here to investigate Tartaros" he declared

"Tartaros? What did they do?" Keji asked

"Indeed from what we've seen of them they act just like any legal guild would, they're not as evil as the Council likes to portray them" Zale added

"Well to be honest we're kind of basing our investigation on a warning the future version of one of us left us in her diary" Natsu said, Keji and Zale both looked at each other before they burst out laughing

"He's not lying!" Happy exclaimed

"Haha, well I'm sorry but you're not going to convince people that a regular guild is evil because someone from the future said so!" Keji laughed

"Not to mention that time travel is impossible at the moment" Zale added after he was able to compose himself

"That's what we thought, but the kingdom of Fiore proved that with a little help from the Book of Zeref then anything is possible" Mavis said

"Wait, they actually took advice from that damn book; guess they're stupider than I gave them credit for" Keji asked suddenly becoming serious

"They thought that there was going to be a massive invasion by ten thousand dragons" Natsu said

"So they decided to build a time travelling gate?" Keji asked confused at Fiore's logic

"There's a lot to it, heck I don't even get what they were thinking. Point is that the gate was actually used to bring a bunch of dragons from the past to our time by a man from the future who wanted to challenge the Dragon King. We fought him, won, and then got the note from the future version of my friend who said that although we prevented him from taking over the world, that Tartaros currently rules the world in her time" Natsu explained

"Well that certainly is quite a story" Zale said deep in thought "And it looks like you're not lying about a single part of it, maybe this involves those elite members of Tartaros everyone's heard about but nobody's seen?" he wondered

"That's what we were able to figure out today, that was until that Riza started chasing me anyways" Natsu answered

"Hmm, this certainly does warrant some investigation perhaps we'll do a bit on our own?" Zale said to Keji

"Seriously?" Keji asked

"I doubt our young friend would come all the way to Ishval as some sort of prank, besides if Tartaros tries to take over the world they'll probably kick me out of this mansion; better to stop it while we still can instead of trying when it's too late" Zale explained

"Whatever you say" Keji sighed

"Very well, tell Jura that we'll do our part to help you guys out. When we've found something out I'll make sure that your group knows" Zale said

"Thanks a lot Mr. Zale, having a god on our side will make our lives a lot easier" Mavis said

"Don't mention it little one" he said with a warm smile

"Well thanks for everything, but I should get back to where the rest of the group is I'm sure they're wondering if me and Happy made it out alright" Natsu said getting up, excited to tell the rest of the group about what happened

"Oh before you leave take this" Zale said handing Natsu a small badge, it was decorated with the image of a dragon and flowers surrounding it

"What is it?" Natsu asked

"It's my symbol" Zale said

"It'll let everyone know that you're under his protection, if anyone asks about what you're doing just show it to them and they won't bother you" Keji said

"Wow, this'll be really useful" Happy said

"Just a quick warning Exceed it'd probably be best if you're not flying around in the city, you'll draw too much negative attention to yourself and make finding out about Tartaros that much harder" Zale said as he ushered them out of his house

"Well let's get going" Mavis said walking past Natsu and Happy; they followed her out of the door after waving goodbye to Keji and Zale, but Natsu started wondering how Mavis had even gotten into the mansion in the first place

"Uh First, you mind if I ask how you ended up finding those two in the first place?" Natsu asked as his curiosity finally overwhelmed him

"Well I was following Kat around, but then she told me to leave her alone since she'd rather be on her own while searching the city, so I did my own searching before Mr. Zale found me and asked me if I was lost" Mavis said

"So he can see ghosts too?" Natsu asked

"Yep, but when I told him it was okay and that there was a group of people I was with he insisted that I hang out with him and that manservant of his. He asked me what we were doing here and I just told him that we had crossed over the border illegally in order to investigate a few things; he was nice though and said that he'd send Keji to look for you guys just in case and then give us all protection if he deemed that I wasn't lying. I also made sure to see if this was all just a front, but inside he's still a really nice guy who's willing to help people if he thinks they deserve it." Mavis explained

"I do have a question First, if we see him again he's bound to at least acknowledge you right?" Happy asked

"Probably" Mavis said

"But not everyone in the group knows you're here right?" Happy asked

"Right…" Mavis explained before realizing what Happy was getting at

"You're right Happy, you think you should reveal yourself to everyone?" Natsu asked

"I guess so; if I'm helping you all out it only makes sense that everyone should know I'm here. I'll make sure that only the group can see me, no use in letting everyone in Ishval know I'm here" Mavis decided

After a few minutes of walking and turning on random streets, the group realized that they were lost at the moment with no help in sight. They figured that everyone else might be searching for them but with Kadessa being as large as it was the search could easily have lasted until morning. Happy offered to fly up and look around so that the rest of the group could find them, although Natsu reminded him about Zale's warnings; even in the dark a flying cat would certainly attract suspicion. So they decided to keep walking ahead until Natsu could pick up the scent of somebody familiar; however ten minutes later they still had no idea where anyone was and were getting tired.

"I think I'll just sleep in some hotel bed, it's not like everyone here can see me just the powerful mages" Mavis said after a yawn

"But what about us?" Natsu asked

"You're on your own" Mavis replied

"You're being meaner than Lucy normally is" Happy whined

"Maybe you guys should die and come back as ghosts then?" Mavis offered

"No thanks, I kind of like living right now but maybe later" Natsu said trying to stifle a yawn

"Okay so I guess I'm not needed then?" Bacchus asked putting down his bottle that he was aiming at Natsu's head with

"Sorry Bacchus maybe another time" Natsu said nearly closing his eyes to fall asleep before they opened up in shock "Bacchus! When the hell did you get here?" he asked quite loudly

"Ah, not so loud! I'm still in the midst of a hangover right now" Bacchus replied with some irritation

"That still doesn't answer the question!" Natsu exclaimed even louder

"Well we were all looking for you and we figured that splitting up would let us cover more ground, I however got very bored and have been drinking at a bar a few blocks down for the last hour. I staggered out and you're the first three people I see so I followed you guys but you weren't listening to me so I just shut up and walked besides you" Bacchus explained

"Three? First, can he see you now?" Natsu asked

"Yeah I'm letting them see me now" Mavis answered

"I have no idea what's going on, but whatever!" Bacchus laughed before drinking the remainder of whatever was in the bottle

"So where's everyone else?" Happy asked

"Good question" Bacchus answered

"You're not being very helpful right now" Natsu sighed

"Your fault for having pink hair and being easily visible for the law to find"

"Not my fault I was born with it!"

"Dye it you idiot, pink hair is literally one of the most memorable colors of hair there is!"

"Shut up both of you, you're going to wake up the entire city" Mavis yelled out silencing everyone else "Thank you" she said politely as they walked on

"So who is this girl anyways?" Bacchus asked

"Long story, I'll explain later" Natsu sighed

"After we get some sleep" Happy said as he fell asleep on Natsu's head

Despite all the staggering, somehow Bacchus was able to lead Natsu, Mavis, and Happy back to the hotel right as some of the search parties were coming back.

"See I told you I could find them you sexy, sexy woman" Bacchus bragged to Erza as her group converged around them

"I didn't think it was possible; Natsu, Happy are you okay?" Erza asked ignoring Bacchus' drunken flirtation attempt

"Yeah we're all fine" Natsu answered

"We were worried that whoever that woman was she was going to catch up to you" Wendy said

"She probably was, but I got a huge assist and she didn't find me until it was too late" Natsu explained

"What do you mean?" Wendy asked

"I'll tell you guys when everyone's gathered it's something we all need to know" Natsu said as they all walked back to the hotel

Meanwhile Kat was still wondering around the city on her own looking for Natsu and Happy although at this point she just wanted to give up and go to sleep. The suddenly empty streets were kind of eerie and creeping her out; she was wishing there was someone with her, if only so that they could give Kat a chance to run away from whatever unseen threats were waiting for her. She sighed and figured that somebody else had to have found him by now or that it was too late; what was the point of her searching for him in a tired state? With that excuse in mind she turned around and started walking to the hotel; however she paused for a few seconds sensing another presence around her but it soon disappeared.

"Weird" she muttered before walking ahead; suddenly she could hear footsteps behind her she took out both of her guns, and spun around quickly to see a strange looking figure in front of her. The curves on the figure suggested a woman although Kat knew there were exceptions to that rule, the figure was around Kat's height with a similar body figure, had long brunette hair, and was wearing a mask with the depiction of a demon covering its face.

"Relax if I wanted to kill you I would have by now" it told her

"Well I doubt it but I respect your right to say such a thing" Kat answered with her guns still pointed at the figure "Also are you a dude or a girl under that mask?"

"Does it matter?" the figure asked

"Kind of"

"I'm a girl"

"That's what I figured from the voice, but I just had to make sure. So what do you want with me then if you're not trying to hunt me down?" Kat asked

"Because we've been watching you and your little friends wonder around this city learning about Tartaros under the guise of wanting to join them, and we also know that you specifically made one of our informants say more than he should have" she told her

"And?" Kat asked

"While it is unfortunate we had to kill Wilson, our leader was impressed with your 'interrogation' methods and wishes to talk to you personally" the figure said

"You killed him? I honestly didn't get that much information from him" Kat said putting away her revolver while still pointing the pistol at the figure's face

"Well you got some and the rules are quite strict about not giving information away to those who don't pay for it"

"So you punish your own, but not the one who made him give up all the info?"

"You didn't make him do anything; he was the one who ultimately decided to squeal. Now, here is where our leader would like to speak to you; you're welcome to bring some of your friends if it makes you feel better" the figure said tossing Kat a card which she caught with her free hand

"And how will you know it's me?" Kat asked still focusing on the figure

"We have eyes everywhere, we'd know if it wasn't you. We'll be expecting you tomorrow at the location specified" the figure said before leaving Kat alone to examine the card

"Wait a minute this thing doesn't have an address on it…" Kat called out before she looked up to see the figure was out of sight "This is great I have a meeting with the people who know everything about what's happening, but have no idea how to get to them. Maybe I'll show this to everyone when I get back?" she wondered as she pocketed the card and went back to the hotel

**Author's note**

Sorry it took me a while to update, I don't have an excuse honestly especially since this chapter is a lot shorter than what I usually write. It's summer break and I haven't been doing that much…so yeah. After reading the latest chapters of Fairy Tail, I'm a bit happier that things are certainly moving forward and that the final parts are soon to be addressed. All I hope is that Hiro Mashima stays away from time travel, leave that stuff to the sci-fi writers.


	9. Counterspy

Kat went back to the hotel as fast as her tired legs would let her, seeing as strange things only happened to her when she was alone getting back to the rest of the team would guarantee her some sleep. The only eventful thing that happened to her was bumping into a very attractive man with blonde hair, they both gave a hasty apology and he gave her a smile which did make her heart skip a few beats before he left. She sighed after wondering why she didn't at least ask for his name so she could look him up after this was all over, but hoped that there were a lot of other guys like him here. When she reached the hotel she was pleasantly surprised to hear that Natsu and Happy had made it back safely, but wasn't happy to hear that they were having a meeting and since she had come back they would start now.

"But sleep" she groaned as Laxus dragged her forcibly to the meeting

"It's not like the meeting will take that long, Natsu said he had something extremely important to tell us and knowing him he would have forgotten it if we waited until morning" Laxus explained as they got to the meeting area "Oh and do stay awake" he said as he plopped her into a chair

"I'll try" she muttered darkly as she gave Laxus a death glare which he ignored

"Well Kat's finally here so I guess we can get down to business" Hibiki announced "First things first, anyone want to explain who this girl is and how she managed to get here without anyone noticing her?" Hibiki asked pointing at Mavis

"Wait they can see you now First?" Lucy asked

"Wait, you could see her from the start?" Hibiki asked

"Not just me, everyone in Fairy Tail could see her...oh and Kat can also see her" Lucy explained

"How's that possible?" Chelia asked

"Is it some kind of cloaking magic?" Eve asked

"Actually I'm a ghost" Mavis said

"What?!" they all replied in shock

"Yep, I died a while back but I stayed on Tenrou Island before I decided it was time to leave and help these guys out" Mavis explained

"Wait Tenrou Island, does that mean that you're a part of Fairy Tail?" Hibiki asked

"That, and she's the founder of our guild" Mirajane answered much to everyone else's shock again

"Seriously? Also what kind of help did you give this bunch" Sting asked after he had recovered from the shock

"Yep I founded Fairy Tail over a hundred years ago, I also helped these guys during the Grand Magic Games by planning out the strategy we mostly used in the final part of the Games…that is until everyone started acting all weird and it messed it up in the end" Mavis said happily

"Wait…so I was outmaneuvered by a child?" Hibiki asked

"Well technically I'm a very old ghost who's experienced when it comes to war and all, but right now I took my childlike form which is a long way of saying that yes you got beaten by a kid" Mavis said

"Well that's depressing" Hibiki sighed

"So why did you decide to wait until now before revealing who you were, also why did you want to come with us?" Orga asked

"Well I wanted to come because I figured I could help out in a variety of way, as to why I waited until now that's because the news relates to what Natsu was about to say…Natsu?" she said before nodding at Natsu to give his announcement

"Have I got some exciting news for everyone here!" Natsu said excitedly as he got up to address the team

"Hurry up, some people have tired themselves searching all day" Kat called out irately

"Jeez what's wrong with her?" Gray muttered

"She's just tired is all" Laxus explained as he and Jura covered her mouth to allow Natsu to speak

"Well while I was running from that girl who's called Riza, I happened to get a major assist as it looked like I had no way of getting out. This man named Keji gave me some weird cloak that somehow made it impossible for her to notice me even though she was looking in my direction and then he took me to a safe place. Well turns out that he was working for Zale who Mavis had met earlier because he can see ghosts too and we explained what we were doing here, and long story short Zale said he'd place us all under his protection and agreed to help us when it comes to investigating Tartaros" Natsu said

"Wait you're serious?" Jura asked in disbelief "Zale gave us his protection just like that?"

"Sounds too good to be true" Kagura said

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, we should just accept it and use it to our advantage" Orga said

"Wait how'd that guy working for Zale even figure out where you were headed?" Lyon asked

"Natsu's got bright pink hair that can be spotted from a mile away, I'm surprised it took that Riza girl so long to find him" Bacchus said to Natsu's annoyance

"I don't know" Lyon said still unsure of what was happening

"Did Zale say at all when he'd talk with you again?" Jura asked

"Hmm, well he said that he'd contact us if he found something of interest but I do know where he lives and I'm sure he'd welcome us all" Natsu answered

"Well this certainly should make life easier" Gajeel said

"Oh right, he also gave me this!" Natsu said taking out the badge he was given earlier

"What is it?" Wendy asked

"His seal, he said that if we show this to anyone who asks what we're doing they'll leave us alone" Natsu explained

"It'll make life really easy on us" Mirajane summed up

"Well this certainly does improve our chances of success, not only do we get to avoid the guards but since Zale is also a nobleman he'll have access to things we could never even hope to get our hands on had we been on our own" Jura said

"Well if there's nothing else I think we should all get some sleep" Hibiki said

"A wonderful idea, it's important that we all get our beauty sleep" Ichiya said

"What do we do about this one?" Laxus asked pointing at Kat who had fallen asleep in her chair

"She'll be fine here, besides like Ichiya said we all need our beauty sleep and waking her up would only harm her" Erza said with an evil smile as they all went quietly to avoid waking up Kat who stayed asleep for a few more minutes before waking up

"Did they seriously leave me here instead of waking me up? Bastards" she said in a huff as she got up "And I was going to show them the card I got after we were done too, what am I supposed to do with this thing now? It's worthless unless I can figure out where it wants me to go… why couldn't that girl have just made it obvious I mean did she think I was going to lose it or something? It's called trust" Kat thought as she opened the door to her room and fell on her bed falling asleep almost immediately.

Jayce Riviera looked over the card he held in his hand to see if it had anything of value, but it was as blank as his expression. He had observed the conversation between that strange figure and the girl and knew that the card was important; he deliberately bumped into the girl to get the card and make a copy of it before she would notice, she was too enamored with his looks to notice what he was doing. He had that effect on a lot of women: he was tall, in his late twenties, in shape, had golden blonde hair, and bright blue eyes that could hypnotize anyone who looked at him, but his silver tongue was his trump card over anyone. For several years he had worked as a counter spy for the kingdom of Ishval, while Riza took care of the illegal visitors it was his job to find the people inside Ishval who were helping its enemies. His skills were unparalleled in this regard, he had over a hundred confirmed spies to his name and he caught them in the same way every time. He would slowly get close to them, his looks made it easy to get in, but it was his soothing voice that sealed their trust in him; once he got that it was easy to catch them in the act and turn them over to the Black Guard where the spies would be tortured until they confessed everything they knew. He received good pay for his work but he had one strange demand that disturbed the members of the Guard, once he turned the spies over he wanted to be in the room where they would be tortured; he reveled in the looks of the people who had entrusted him with everything just a moment ago and their realization that he never cared about them in the first place, it made their screams that much more satisfying to him. He flicked his hair out of his eyes as he made his way to the Palace to report what he had gotten, he showed his ID to the guards who let him in, and he made his way to give his report to Hayate who in addition to being the Emperor's personal bodyguard also led the Black guard.

"That man takes loyalty to a whole new level that's for sure" Jayce muttered as he made his way to Hayate's quarters "Oh Hayate, it's me Jayce" he said as he knocked on the door

"Come in Jayce" Hayate called out

Jayce opened the door to see Hayate and his sister Riza which was strange as she would rarely visit her brother while he was still in the Palace. It was interesting to see them standing near each other as it was probably the only way to know they were related besides the fact that their last names were Blackburn. Jayce could argue that Riza was just a smaller, more feminine, more cheery, and more attractive version of her older brother. Hayate had medium length brunette hair that barely reached the back of his neck, he was tall standing a few inches above Jayce, wore the royal cloak with his family's symbol over his nice shirt and pants that hid his impressive physique, and belied his impressive skills he had gained through many years of training…he deserved his spot as the Emperor's Guard and killed his father who was no weakling himself to earn his title as a God something that was happened a lot in his family apparently.

"Well?" Hayate asked noticing that Jayce was simply standing there just looking at the siblings

"Sorry sir, not often I get to see you and your sister so close to each other. How are you doing Riza, you look flustered at the moment" Jayce asked

"I'm not in an agitated state of confusion, I'm just plain pissed off. Who the hell does that Zale think he is offering protection to a bunch of illegal visitors like that?" she said angrily

"He's a God of Ishval and well within his right as a nobleman to do things like that little sister, when will you realize that?" Hayate explained

"I know he can do that, but it's still annoying when it gets in the way of my job" she sighed

"Well if it makes you feel better, I have no such limitations" Jayce said smiling

"Oh shut up Jayce, we can't all be counter spies who get a hard on by watching people get tortured" she snapped while getting up "I'm going back to my place, see you later"

"What a strange sister you have" Jayce noted

"Says the guy who gets a hard on by watching people get tortured" Hayate responded

"Not true, it has to be people who were trusting me with their life just a few minutes ago for me to get excited when that stuff happens" Jayce said with a grin

"Alright, anything of interest?" Hayate asked

"Well I did witness a conversation between one of the illegal visitors Riza was hunting before Zale protected them and a strange female figure" Jayce said

"How strange are we talking?"

"Well you know those old Noh masks? Like the ones with the depictions of the demons on them?"

"Yeah?"

"That figure was wearing one to cover her face in addition to the navy blue suit she was in"

"I see… did they say anything interesting or was it just banter?"

"They said interesting things, something about how the leader the figure works for wanted to talk to the girl and she gave her a card that detailed where they could be found"

"Did you see the card?"

"Even better I bumped into the girl after the figure left, took the card, made a copy of it, then gave it back to her before she noticed and then I left after an apology." Jayce answered

"Why didn't you just take the actual card?" Hayate asked

"She seemed like a nice girl and she was kind of cute, if I see her again I don't want the first thing to happen is her shooting me in the face for stealing her card…did I mention that she has guns?" Jayce answered

"…The fuck is wrong with you?" Hayate sighed

"Many things sir, for one the only girl I truly cared about was my cousin whose parents wouldn't let me talk to her anymore because I was too weird… whatever that meant" Jayce explained

"Was it because you were messed up as a child?"

"I was a bit strange I'll admit that much"

"Well did the card say anything?"

"No, it's blank. Wanna see?" Jayce said showing the card to Hayate

"I doubt she was given a blank card there's probably some riddle on the real version of the card that says where that person's leader is." Hayate said

"That makes sense"

"Then why didn't you just sneak the copy onto the girl and keep the original?" Hayate said slowly getting annoyed with Jayce

"Because I make illusions of the original stuff and they wear off if I'm not close enough" Jayce said defensively

"What's she going to do to a man who's literally under the protection of the Emperor himself?" Hayate asked

"I don't know, it looked like she didn't care about anything at the moment. I mean you should have seen how fast she drew her guns, I'm sure if that figure hadn't said anything she would have been peppered with bullets" Jayce explained

"You're a dumbass, there's no other way to describe you" Hayate sighed

"So am I free to go home?"

"For now, but when the sun rises you better find that girl and track wherever this leader is because finding the leader might solve a lot of problems for us. Now get out of here before I decide to punish you for being such a dumbass" Hayate said

"Don't worry Hayate I'll find that girl even if I don't get enough sleep" Jayce announced melodramatically "Incidentally, is Riza still single?"

"I don't know" Hayate said with a blank expression and before Jayce could even react Hayate was behind him; he covered Jayce's eyes with his right hand and his left hand was at Jayce's throat, there was a small blade protruding from Hayate's palm that was poking Jayce's throat "What do you think?"

"I get it, I get it" Jayce said quickly which seemed to satisfy Hayate who let go of Jayce who massaged his throat "That blade of yours poked into my throat a bit"

"Next time it'll be all the way in, stay away from her" Hayate said darkly as the blade receded into his palm

"Alright I will" Jayce muttered as he walked away from Hayate's quarters, relieved that he had made it out alive

Kat woke up very early in the morning so early that the sun hadn't even begun to rise yet which annoyed her as she felt refreshed and eager to do things all of a sudden. She knew that she was most likely the only person up at the moment and that the rest of the city was still asleep, which meant that she had absolutely nothing to do except stare at the card and hope an address would magically appear. She took a shower which usually helped her think; sure enough half way through she thought of focusing magic into her eyes and then looking at the card to see if it said anything. After she dried off and put on some new clothes on she looked at the card once more with magic aided eyes and this time she was able to find some sort of magical ink on the card although it wasn't what she expected.

"Point in any direction and the card will show the way… so basically it's a game of warmer or colder?" Kat asked in disbelief and to her chagrin under the instructions, a simple yes appeared to confirm her question.

She sighed before deciding that since she had nothing better to do she might as well find out where the card led her to. She put on her jacket and strapped her guns to her waist before she headed onto the streets of Kadessa. The card would stay orange if it was pointed in the right direction and yellow if in the wrong direction, although the card had to tell that to Kat as she didn't know what it meant originally. She was intrigued with its ability to communicate with whoever was holding it as long as they were looking at it with magic infused eyes. Kat didn't know what type of magic this was but figured it must have been the way those people would normally communicate with each other. The card finally led her to a secluded alleyway where Kat assumed she was going to get jumped and took out her pistol for protection, but surprisingly nothing happened and soon she was at a door at the end of the alley. The door itself had no knob, only sign that read "Knock for Service" written in the same style as the notes on the card she was given.

"Oh right I'm still magically seeing things right now so this must be the place" Kat muttered, she looked at the card which now had the word yes written on it to confirm her idea. She had nothing better to do and gave the door a few knocks; she heard someone groaning before a slot opened and someone looked out to investigate her

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" he asked groggily

"Very early" she answered

"Exactly, too early if you ask me. So what brought you here?" he asked

"This" Kat said putting the card up against the slot so the man could see it

"Oh, you're that girl our leader wanted to talk to huh?" he asked

"Yep" she said

"Alright come on in" he said opening the door to let her in

"Just like that?" she asked

"Don't worry we were profiling you as you came here, we know you're the right person" he said as he led her down a narrow corridor deeper into the building, finally he led her to an elevator that took them up to the top of the building. They entered a room that was across from the Palace and that overlooked the city's main square; the room was quite spacious and filled with luxurious items from all around the world and at the center of the room was a large throne.

"Someone's got a vanity complex" Kat said

"I'm not vain the chair's just got good back support is all" a voice said

Kat looked at the direction of the voice to see what she assumed was a man flanked by the female figure that she had talked to yesterday. The female figure was in the same attire as before, while the man was wearing a nice suit that had an interesting color scheme; the right half was all black with a small white patch while the left half was all white with a small black path. He was also wearing a Noh mask of his own which depicted what was supposed to be a majestic white wolf it looked like. He was holding what looked like a wakizashi in his left hand, he had a strong physique, and stood several inches taller than the girl.

"Oh please, you only sit on this chair when we have company normally you're on that recliner of yours playing chess" the female figure said

"Don't call me out in front of guests, it's not ice" he said defensively, Kat noticed that his voice seemed to have a build up effect when he spoke as she could hear echoes when he talked, also his voice seemed to be modified by the mask he was wearing probably so nobody could know who he was. "Anyway young one, it's nice to see you've decided to have our meeting so soon although I must ask why you didn't bring your friends?" he started

"Because I work better alone, can we start now?" Kat answered

"Slow down, formalities first my dear; the name's Zane" he said

"I'm Kat, now can we get down to business?" she asked

"Of course but first we must talk payment, I know you don't have much cash on you so we'll need to find another way" he said

"What do you want?" she asked

"In Kadessa there's one thing more valuable than money and that's information, whoever has the most controls many things. For a while that's been me and I intend to hold my advantage, so young one we'll trade information with each other; for each piece of information I give you, you'll give me something juicy that I don't know" Zane decided

"Seems fair, although I don't know what interests you" Kat said

"You can talk about a lot of things, for example an accurate description of the team you've come with?" he started

"Deal" she said without hesitation glad that she came alone

"Good, now what would you like to know?"


	10. Kat and Zane

Kat sighed as once again Zane gave a long history lesson to answer her questions about Tartaros, technically it did answer the question but wasn't at all useful to her. She knew that he was trying to win this little game by draining her of the limited amount of information she could give about the team while giving her nothing. However two could play at this game and she gave very detailed descriptions of the Exceeds every time he asked her about members of the team. Although this did have the desired effect of annoying him, Kat knew that unless she could get information about Tartaros' elite members soon she would eventually have to give up info about the members he cared about. She wondered if asking questions was the right strategy, there was always some way to circumvent actually answering them; Zane hadn't asked a single question, rather he made demands of her which there was no way out except to give him what he wanted.

"And one violent exorcism later they sealed away the ghost of Badon Hill forever." Zane said finishing off his long tale of how Tartaros dealt with ghosts "Hmm, you're just standing there young one, did you finally realize that I've been playing you this entire time?"

"No I knew from the moment I got here that neither of us wanted to really help each other out, but we both need each other for now so I kept playing along" Kat replied holding back the urge to shoot him in the eyes

"Well would you like to continue the game?" he asked

"Of course" she said with a smile

"Hmm, I don't like that smile are you learning how to play by my rules or are you just trying to psyche me out?" he asked

"Here's my demand" Kat said ignoring his question "Describe the direction connections each of the Gods of Ishval have with Tartaros, and let me clarify what I mean by direct; I'm talking about public statements that either support or oppose the dark guild, contributions made to the guilds, attacks on the guild or by the guild on a God, and if they are at all directly associated with the guild" Kat said

"Huh?" Zane asked after a few moments

"You heard me" Kat said confidently

"There isn't a way for me to not answer this…no fair you're using demands like I was. So you did figure out how to play by my rules" Zane exclaimed

"I want an answer" Kat said

"Fine, this is going to be a long answer though so feel free to demand clarification whenever; I guess I should start with Hayate then" Zane said

"The Emperor's personal bodyguard right?" Kat asked

"Yep: Hayate isn't a fan of Tartaros and has made his agreement with the Council's decision to designate them a dark guild well known. He actually has been attacked by a few members before, although they didn't know who he was at the time and were subsequently killed as a result. However the other members simply said that those three were kicked out of the guild earlier because of bad behavior so not much else happened after that. But I'm sure Hayate took that to heart and since then has amplified his criticism of Tartaros…if you're looking for potential allies against Tartaros he's a possibility, heck if you're public enough he'll find you and offer help" Zane said

"He hates them that much?" Kat asked

"Yep, he blames them for the poor relations between Ishval and the Council"

"Now the other three"

"I was hoping you'd forget; anyway Jaster the Lawmaker claims to be neutral but he supports Tartaros to some extent: private statements against the Council and he's passed a few laws in their favor" Zane started

"Does he just pass them like by himself, no senate or nothing?" Kat asked, the idea of one person passing the laws in a seemingly normal place was a bit strange

"Well technically there is a Senate, but they mostly just do what he wants them to which is why he's called the Lawmaker" Zane explained

"That seems a bit dangerous" Kat said

"Eh, it doesn't really affect me seeing as I operate outside the law" Zane said

"Anything else about his direct connection to Tartaros?" Kat asked making sure to stay on topic

"Not much else to say except that he and Hayate don't talk about it, probably because a fight would break out between the two…that actually would be very entertaining to watch" Zane answered

"How would that be entertaining?" Kat asked

"Because Hayate would totally decapitate Jaster one second after the fight began!" Zane said excitedly "It would certainly put that Lawmaker in his place"

"You really hate Jaster don't you?"

"You have no idea, but back to the topic at hand. Zale is an interesting case because he's very careful about what he says and does; he clearly understands the importance of public appearance and it's like he knows there are people like me watching his private life, so honestly I got very little on him. Same goes for Nameless, hell nobody knows what that guy is thinking and it's impossible to keep track of him. The last time I had someone try to follow him, I got a box at this address with their head in it… so I figured it was best to leave him alone" Zane explained

"So where is he now?" Kat asked

"Wait a minute that wasn't a part of your original demand, it's my turn now" Zane said

"Fine, who do you want to learn about now?" Kat asked

"Let's see I already know everything worthwhile about Jura, those pretty boys can wait same with the old man who thinks he's a pretty boy, the Fairy Tail mages can wait a bit, and Jura's friends don't seem interesting enough for me to ask about them so early…man why'd you have to figure out my game so quickly?" he muttered

"Your fault for assuming I'd never figure it out in the first place, now hurry up I don't have all day" Kat replied

"Fine, I want a complete description on that one man who's constantly drinking" Zane declared

"What?" Kat asked after a few moments

"You know the one guy in your group who's never not drunk, wears some weird half vest with no undershirt, keeps a gourd on him at all times" Zane described

"You mean Bacchus?" Kat asked

"Is that his name?" Zane asked

"Yes" Kat sighed

"Alright then give me the description about him!" Zane said sounding oddly excited

"I mean there's not much to Bacchus other than the fact that he's drinking a lot and trying to flirt with a lot of women unsuccessfully." Kat started still unsure why he cared so much about Bacchus

"What about his magic?" Zane asked

"It's simple really he just focuses magic power in his palms and then proceeds to beat people up, he's supposed to be strong but when I saw him in the Grand Magic Games he ended up losing twice so I'm not sure about that claim. I don't know why you're so interested in him though, there's honestly not much there" Kat explained

"Don't worry young one, I have my reasons. Now is there anything else you'd like to know or are we done here?" he asked

"I still have plenty of things I want to know" Kat said

"Well unfortunately for you I only have one more thing I want to know, but since I'm impressed with your performance thus far I'll grant you two demands; make it quick though I haven't had breakfast yet and I'm hungry" he said

"Okay then…" Kat replied wondering how Zane ever managed to get so much information the way he acted "My first demand is that you tell me exactly when Tartaros will make a major move to try and seize control over Ishval"

"Now what makes you think they'll do that?" Zane asked growing serious

"Just answer my demand" Kat replied firmly

"I don't know when they'll do it because they don't know when they'll have a chance to take over. There's a lot going against them: the Black Guard finds spies so quickly that any conspiracy doesn't have enough time to get off the ground, Riza and her squad stop most outside help from having an impact, also I doubt even the elite members who supposedly exist want to get into a fight with Hayate who can keep both Zale and Jaster in check on his own." Zane explained

"Alright, now my second demand is that you tell me what would make it highly likely that Tartaros initiates a coup: strength in numbers, assassination, or members joining them?" Kat asked

"No way in hell they assassinate Hayate or the Emperor, they won't have enough members to outnumber or outgun the Imperial Army; the only way they win is if one of these two people joins them. First is Nameless who some say can counter Hayate's magic but since nobody knows what he wants that's not likely, the second one is Erika a girl who could become a Wizard Saint if she could muster enough patience to sit through the ceremony; she's very unpredictable though and she's just as likely to destroy Tartaros as she is to join them. Beyond those two Tartaros is kind of in a rut right now, unless those elite members are stronger than I know or they have one hell of a plan" Zane said

"I see any chance you know where that Erika is?" Kat asked

"Not part of your demand" Zane said waving his finger at her

"Alright you said you wanted to know one more thing, what was it?" Kat asked

"Any spectral members on your team?" Zane asked quietly which surprised Kat

"Does everyone know about Mavis, should I lie to him about this? Wait he just asked if there were 'any' spectral members I can just say yes and be done with him" she wondered

"Well?" he asked after waiting a few moments

"Yes" she said flatly

"Alright, well it was nice talking with you" Zane said getting up from his throne

"Wait what?" she asked wondering why he seemed satisfied

"Oh before you leave, two free things I'm going to give you because I like you so much" he said nodding to one of his assistants

"First, give this gourd to that Bacchus person on your team" Zane said pointing to a black gourd that his assistant was holding, the assistant took it to Kat and gently placed it in her hands "Do be careful with that, now the second thing is one you need to take into heart if you want to get out of this city safely. Don't rely too much on the people you meet here, everyone has their own goals and won't hesitate to use you guys to achieve them."

"Wait, what's in this gourd?" Kat asked opening the cap to take a sniff, the smell was awful and she closed it up quickly

"Tell Bacchus that he should only drink it when there's no other choice" Zane advised avoiding the question

"Okay then…" Kat said wondering why he was avoiding the topic

"Well off you go then" Zane said pointing at the elevator

Kat shrugged before going towards the elevator and taking it down to the ground floor. When she got outside she could see rays of sunlight appearing from behind the clouds as the sun was finally rising, she smiled as she remembered how early it still was. She walked back to the hotel noting that she was the only person walking around; there weren't even any guards up patrolling the city like in Crocus. She glanced up at the building she was just in to see that Zane was watching her progress with some interest; he waved at her when he noticed her looking back at him.

"Aw she ignored me" Zane said playfully as Kat kept moving along

"You're one of the stranger people I've come to know, and I've lived here my entire life" the female figure said watching her leader

"Oh Fay, don't be so mean besides even if I'm strange you can't deny the benefit of working under me" Zane replied still watching Kat

"That's true, not many people could take control of the underworld in less than a year" Fay said with some admiration as she moved next to him to watch Kat "Smart girl though, most people would have never figured out how to beat you at this game"

"Well I did teach her everything she knows" he said smiling as he took off his mask "But who says she beat me?" Chaos asked


	11. Silva and Erika

"Hmm I gotta say I was hoping for a more entertaining battle…do you have any backup because that would make things a lot more fun!" Erika called out to her opponent who right now was a bloody mess; it was difficult to tell that he was a man what with the severe injuries Erika had dealt him

"She's insane" he thought barely keeping himself upright thinking about the failed plan: he was only supposed to test her and then come back with a report which was easy for someone of his talents, but this girl had different ideas. She wasted no time in beating him into a bloody pulp, she was much faster than he realized and her hand to hand abilities were far superior to his. She hadn't even used magic to do this, and to make things worse she had no problems with his water magic and often times used his attacks against him.

"Hmm I guess that's a no to the backup then, oh well looks like this is where it ends for you!" she called back raising her right arm up, a magic circle appeared in front of her and soon a stone golem around six feet tall rose up with a large stone spear in its hands. She pointed to the man and it nodded before moving towards him.

"Stay back!" he screamed unleashing concussive water blasts at the golem which had no effect on it at all, in fact all it did was run faster at him and impaled him with its spear. It took its spear out but kept it at the ready while Erika came closer to examine the body

"Oh look you're still alive, but it looks like you're in pain. Don't worry I'll fix it!" she said with a bright smile, she extended her right arm towards the ground and soon the earth began moving up towards her arm and surrounding it; soon a large arm was formed which Erika used to crush the man's chest in a single blow killing him instantly, she then waved her left hand and the golem and the earth around her arm crumbled apart.

She then sat on the ground to relax on the hilly terrain and watch the sunrise after the battle she had won. Her opponent was lying dead at her feet with fear and shock etched in his eyes; most people tended to underestimate her until they fought her. She didn't blame them though, she honestly didn't look that intimidating: she was barely in her twenties, around average height, had short messy red hair, and her clothes were always wrinkled; in fact the only things that she had that could scare people were her blood red eyes, and the eerie smile she gave when a fight was about to happen. Fighting was in her blood as far as she was concerned and she had been trained to fight at a very young age so that's what she did. She preferred to be alone but that was due to the fact that there weren't many people who were like her, nobody who shared her drive to fight, nobody who didn't care about how she looked, and nobody who cared about how happy killing her opponent made her feel.

"Guess I'm just doomed to walk this earth alone" Erika sighed "Wait, who am I talking to? Is it you? No wait you're dead so it can't be you" she muttered at the dead body wondering if she was going crazy

She pondered this question for a few moments before she decided it wasn't worth thinking about, also the body was starting to attract flies so it was time to leave. She dusted off her shirt and noticed that there was some blood on it, as much fun as it was killing people the mess did annoy her as it was difficult to get the stains out. Erika sighed before she suddenly turned around, stomped hard on the ground to create a wall of earth in front of her, and then hearing the sound of metal hitting the wall. She frowned as she couldn't sense where her enemy was, a first for her; she looked around and saw a woman approaching her with a gun in her hands. Erika couldn't sense an ill will coming from this strange woman but took no chances, she raised both her arms up and five magic circles appeared around her and soon golems were rising from the circles. All were around ten feet tall with large stone weapons in hand and they formed a defensive barrier in front of Erika.

"Easy there, the shot I fired earlier was to test you" the woman called out

"That's what they all say! That's not true actually; you're the only person who's confronted me with a gun so ignore that last statement! Who are you anyway? Were you this guy's caretaker, if so then you're too late?" Erika called back

"My name is Silva, and no I'm not this man's caretaker…I'm his superior" Silva said strapping her gun to her back and it disappeared causing Erika some confusion "Don't worry it's in a pocket dimension, if you're as good as my master thinks you are then you'll kill me before I can take it back out"

"That's reassuring" Erika said cheerfully, previously unaware of her ability to do that "So what'd you wanna talk about?"

"Well I had a proposal for you, but I'd like to talk face to face about it" Silva said while measuring up the five golems in front of her that were staring at her

"No problem!" Erika said and with a wave of her hand the golems crumbled apart surprising Silva

"You know I didn't really mean get rid of them, just for them to move out of the way" Silva said while moving closer

"Eh it's easier if I just destroy them and make new ones" Erika said as she made two seats of earth for them to sit on

"I see" Silva said confused by this girl's behavior as she took a seat

"Oh right I should introduce myself first! I'm Erika" Erika said

"Erika…?" Silva asked looking for a last name

"Just Erika, my last name is something I don't really tell to people" Erika said momentarily growing serious before smiling again "So let's get down to business, what do you want to talk about?"

"Right, well I came here to make a proposition to you" Silva started

"What kind of proposition? Is it one of those here's a million jewel now go kill someone type of propositions, because let me tell you I'm totally cool with that…in fact please tell me it's one of those" Erika said excitedly

"Um, no" Silva said wondering what her master saw in this girl

"Oh well, my fault for getting my hopes so high" Erika sighed "So what is it then?"

"We'd like for you to join our organization and help us achieve our goal for bringing peace to this land"

"Peace to Ishval, are we at war with someone? If so why have I not been told of this?"

"No not Ishval, peace to all of Earthland"

"Eh?" Erika asked a bit confused

"Look what are the greatest threats to humanity at the moment?" Silva asked

"That depends on one's opinion of the word threat: an individual can be a threat, a group of people could be a threat, an entire nation, or you could go all philosophical and name a concept as a threat" Erika said "Unless of course this was just a preface to your next statement and I wasn't supposed to actually answer the question" she continued

"Um yeah" Silva said now thoroughly confused by Erika "Two threats that come off the top of my head are the Black Wizard Zeref and the Dragon King Acnologia"

"Well they're certainly scary I'll give them that, I doubt anyone can beat them in a fight" Erika said admiringly

"For a while that's been the common belief, however what if I told you there exists magics that would allow for both of them to be killed?" Silva asked

"I'd believe you" Erika said

"Really?" Silva asked a bit surprised

"Yeah, I mean you just said that there is some magic capable of killing both of them and I'm sure there is some magic capable of killing them. Just because I don't know what this magic is or what it looks like doesn't mean it's fake" Erika explained

"This is much easier that I expected" Silva thought as she wasn't sure of what to think of Erika now, on the surface she seemed like an idiot and even when you dug a little deeper she still was an idiot. But Silva now began to wonder if this was just a ruse for the girl to remain unnoticed, she looked over at the remains of her former lieutenant. She only sent him to evaluate Erika and come back with a report, yet the fight between the two was short, awfully one sided, and she felt that Erika had turned into a monster during the fight.

"Hello, you alright in there?" Erika asked cheerfully

"Yeah just reevaluating you is all" Silva said

"Oh, so where is this magic or magics anyway?" Erika asked

"Somewhere inside the Imperial Palace, the only person who knows about is the Emperor himself" Silva said

"And how'd you find that out?" Erika asked curiously

"We have an informant who knows a lot…probably a bit too much" Silva answered

"Hmm, so why hasn't the Emperor done anything with this magic himself?" Erika asked

"Because the magic is far too powerful for normal mages to control, and if he allowed a strong person to control that magic they might take over Ishval if not more." Silva explained

"So why should I believe that you guys would be so benevolent as to destroy both Zeref and Acnologia but not try and gain political power?" Erika asked

"This girl knows what she's talking about that's for sure" Silva thought "Because it wouldn't be just someone within our group holding the power, there would be multiple people which would make sure one couldn't gain too much power since theoretically there would be others to balance that person out" Silva explained

"Oh so just like how the current Gods all get along with each other?" Erika asked

"Exactly, albeit if we're right about the scale of magic they'd be actual Gods instead of just titles" Silva said

"Hmm, so who gets this prospective power?" Erika asked

"My master would be one, there is one who has promised to join us who will also receive this power, and perhaps even yourself if you agree to join us" Silva said

"As much fun as it sounds to be a God things would be too easy, I mean part of the thrill of fighting someone is the risk that you die too you know?" Erika said

"Well you don't have to accept that part but we would like for you to join us" Silva said

"Will I get to fight strong people?" Erika asked

"Lots"

"Alright I'm in" Erika said

"I should have just started with that shouldn't I?" Silva sighed

"Probably, oh what organization am I joining?" Erika asked

"Tartaros"

"Oh, so those elite members actually exist?"

"Yes I'm one of them and now you, we also have a few that are ingrained within the higher portions of Ishvalan society so we can spy on the Government" Silva explained

"Cool!" Erika said excitedly not sure what that meant "So when do we seize power!" she asked growing more excited

"In due time, but take this" Silva said handing her a card

"A ball? I'm not into those kind of things, besides I don't really have formal attire nor do I know how to act properly in these settings" Erika said examining the invitation

"It's held in the Imperial Palace and it's when the Emperor is at his most vulnerable, this is when we'll make our move" Silva explained

"Well that answers that, but what about the formal attire stuff" Erika asked

"I can help you with that"

"I also need etiquette coaching"

"I guess I can help with that too"

"Cool then we're settled?" Erika asked with a wide smile sticking her hand out in a friendly gesture

"Indeed" Silva said with a thin smile as she shook her new ally's hand although it turned into a frown when she noticed someone on another hill a ways off spying on them. She could tell it was a man with spiky hair and was fairly tall but that was about it; she pulled out a rifle from the pocket dimension on her back and aimed at the man.

"What's going on, another test?" Erika asked curiously

"Just keep your head down and let me pick off this guy and we'll be off" Silva said as she aimed down the sights at the man and fired a shot at him, the man ducked and then jumped away behind the hill before Silva could aim another shot at him

"He ran off, do you want me to go after him?" Erika asked

"No need, I doubt he could hear what we were talking about. The only thing he could possibly get from watching us was that we're now in agreement over something since we shook hands; now come on we've got a lot of preparation to go through if we want this to work out" Silva said getting up to leave with Erika in tow

"I can hear you Silva and Erika Scarlet" Cobra said dusting off his coat "I guess I should warn those Fiore mages before the ball happens huh?"


	12. Before the Fire

By the time Kat made it back to the hotel the sun was up and the streets were once again busy with action, it was weird that there always seemed to be people walking around and that the crowds were the same size. She shrugged it off though and continued to idly eat her breakfast alone inside the hotel; the food was interesting to say the least but it did give her something to do while she waited for the rest of the team. Soon they were beginning to wake up and gather at her table, she decided to wait until everyone was there and alert before telling them about her discoveries although she could barely contain her excitement.

"You look pretty eager to say something" Erza said having noticed that Kat was acting bouncier than ever

"You bet I do!" Kat exclaimed happily

"What, did you find something out in the two hours since the sun has risen?" Laxus asked wondering how anyone could be up before sunrise

"Yep" Kat said

"Seriously?" Mavis asked

"Seriously" Kat said

"Hey, do you need to eat anything?" Hibiki asked Mavis still wondering what being a ghost was like

"Hmm yes and no" Mavis replied after a few moments of thinking

"That doesn't answer the question" Hibiki sighed

"It's complicated I'll just say that much" she said

"You don't even know do you?" Erza asked

"Well as long as she's feeling alright and ready to help us out does it matter?" Natsu asked "Besides as long as she's got it under control I don't think we should be intruding too much"

"Wow that was awfully mature of you" Lucy said sounding genuinely impressed

"Well isn't it obvious?" he asked

"Well it is, but we're surprised that you figured it out" Mirajane said with a smile

"So cruel" Natsu sighed as Happy quickly came over to console him

"Well that was a surprisingly good meal" Chelia said as she wiped her mouth with his napkin

"Ishvalan food is full of surprises I've learned and tends to have extreme tastes depending on who's eating it" Jura said nearly gagging on his last bite "So Kat you looked like you've been waiting for sometime, do you have something to say?" he asked

"Indeed I do" she said

"…well?" Sting asked after there was a strange silence

"Patience blondie, let's see where to begin" Kat said ignoring Sting's annoyed look "Well it all started yesterday technically: while searching for Natsu I ended up talking to a strange masked lady who's good at hiding herself, she said that her leader wanted to talk to me on account of me being able to make one of his agents talk without direct torture"

"You were threatening to kill that poor guy and I'm pretty sure if I hadn't shown up you would have started torturing him" Erza pointed out

"Well in hindsight I probably should have seeing that they killed the guy for talking" Kat replied

"What?" Erza exclaimed in shock

"Well can you blame them, I mean if you're running an information business the last thing you need are people who'll give that stuff up for free?" Kat asked "Also killing him sets a precedent for the other agents just in case they thought they could get away with that stuff too so it's only sensible for them to do that"

"Ethics aside what happened after that?" Jura asked

"You're fine with this?" Erza asked

"What's done is done there's nothing we can do about it" Jura dismissed "Kat keep going"

"Let's see, so the lady gives me a card with their address on it but it's not actually there at first glance. I wanted to ask you guys about it but then I fell asleep and none of you bothered to wake me up, but next morning I figure out where they are and then go and meet their leader who calls himself Zane" Kat said not bothering to tell them about the man she bumped into or how she figured out the address

"What did he look like?" Gray asked

"Hell if I know he was wearing a mask just like that lady he sent after me was…I think they all wear masks. Well after we got into a game of exchanging information I was able to learn about each God's relationship with Tartaros, when Tartaros would make a move for power, and what they'd need for it to work" she explained

"I can't imagine he gave you all of that for free" Laxus said

"Well like I said we exchanged information, all I had to do was give out what I knew about you guys" Kat said

"What?" Natsu said in shock

"Don't worry he wasn't specific, all he has to work with are detailed reports on the talking cats and Bacchus" Kat said

"Hey don't make it sound like I'm not important" Bacchus said feeling hurt inside

"How do you think we feel?" Pantherlily asked

"Who cares, you guys are talking cats!" Bacchus exclaimed

"No offense dude, but you lost to this one's weak younger brother" Kat said pointing at Mirajane "And then to this guy when you didn't notice his ambush" she finished pointing at Sting

"Well if that's all you had to give up then it was probably worth it" Mirajane said

"That hurts!" Bacchus exclaimed

"Don't be such a baby Bacchus we all need to make sacrifices" Erza said

"But quit making it sound like I'm not important" he muttered sullenly

"Well if it makes you feel better Zane was oddly interested in you, he even wanted me to give you this" Kat said handing Bacchus the black gourd she was given earlier "I have no idea what it is except that it smells awful and Zane said you should only drink it when you have no choice, whatever that means" she explained as Bacchus took of the cap to investigate it

"Yuck, please put the cap back on I can smell it from here!" Gajeel said covering his nose to block the smell a sentiment shared by Natsu, Wendy, Sting, and Laxus

"It's not that bad, certainly not the worst smelling drink I've ever had" Bacchus said putting the cap back on and attaching it to this waist

"So what did he say about the Gods and Tartaros?" Wendy asked

Kat did her best to repeat exactly what she had been told earlier, it was easy seeing as this had all happened an hour ago but she did avoid telling them about Zane's personal opinion since she felt it wasn't important. She also told them about the two people Zane said Tartaros would be going after to try and bolster their forces although she wished that she had asked him what they looked like; fortunately Jura was able to fill in some of the gaps for Nameless.

"He's like those guys in that he's fond of keeping masks on although from the way you describe Zane I doubt Nameless would work with them, he can't stand those types of people. He's not that tall but he carries a lot of weapons on him so when he's walking you can hear the noise of metal moving around under the cloak he wears, now whether he can counter Hayate remains to be seen since the only person who's seen his magic was the God he killed" Jura explained

"Which God did he kill?" Gray asked

"Marx the Regenerator" Jura answered

"Wait you mean the one who was supposedly immortal?" Ichiya asked

"Well Nameless proved otherwise, but you're right out of all the Gods to go after Marx was the least likely; his magic regenerated his wounds so quickly that even if you stabbed him in the heart he'd be fine. So it makes sense for Tartaros to think Nameless could beat Hayate" Jura replied

"What about Erika?" Kagura asked

"No clue" Jura said flatly

"I think I can help out" Cobra said walking up to the group

"Cobra!" Natsu exclaimed in shock which made Cobra wince in pain

"Not so loud!" Cobra said as he covered his ears

"Oh sorry, but wait what the hell are you doing here?" Natsu asked

"Yeah you told me you were going to another country and settle down" Kat said

"Well this is another country isn't it?" Cobra asked

"Right…" Kat realized

"And with ears like mine you tend to hear things you wish you didn't and then you make the even dumber decision to follow up on those things, and then you find yourself in a very dangerous situation where people are shooting at you from distances you thought impossible." Cobra explained

"What?" Natsu asked

"He means that he's been investigating Tartaros on his own since he couldn't help but hearing about their actions" Mirajane summed up

"Yep, and I hate to say it but Tartaros managed to convince that Erika girl to join them" Cobra continued

"What about Nameless?" Erza asked

"I don't know, the woman from Tartaros was only focused on recruiting Erika, but they might already have his support since that lady told Erika that they would be making their move at some ball taking place in the Imperial Palace" he explained

"Why during a ball?" Lucy asked

"It makes sense, the people in the ball probably aren't expecting an attack especially when they're inside the safety of the Palace" Hibiki answered

"But that would imply that there are members of Tartaros who have invitations in the first place" Milliana said

"Yeah that Silva said that the elite members are all ingrained high up in Ishvalan society so I don't think they'd have a problem getting invitations" Cobra said

"Silva?" Kat asked

"Oh that was the name of the woman who was recruiting Erika" Cobra answered

"Now all we need are invitations so we can go stop them" Eve said

"I'm sure Zale can get us invitations if we tell him what's going on" Natsu said

"Is he at that awesome mansion of his right now?" Mavis asked

"Who knows but we might as well knock and see if he's there" Natsu replied getting up

Hayate hated having to talk to Zane, the shifty bastard never gave a straight answer and enjoyed talking in riddles just to annoy Hayate; what was worse was that Hayate had no legal grounds to arrest or torture Zane and when he tried threatening Zane, Zane would just move his organization to another building for Hayate to find. He had no choice in the matter though since all the information was controlled by Zane, luckily his childhood friend Fay was part of the group and more than willing to help him out despite her boss' orders and would give out the information he wanted. Zane really didn't have much choice in the matter since Fay was probably his best agent and he'd rather keep her than try and find someone else to replace her, but that didn't stop him from making life difficult for Hayate. He'd send Fay out when he received word that Hayate was looking for him, but luckily for Hayate when he showed up this time she was there giving her report to Zane.

"Son of a bitch" Zane muttered as soon as he saw Hayate causing Fay to turn around

"Hayate, good to see you" Fay said waving at her old friend

"Good to see you too Fay, wish I could say the same for your boss" Hayate said walking towards the throne Zane sat on

"Fay would you mind giving us some privacy?" Zane asked

"What you don't trust me?" Fay asked playfully

"That's exactly it; all you do is give him stuff for free!" Zane exclaimed

"Oh come on we already know anything of worth that's going on inside the palace so it's not like he can give up information in exchange" Fay said

"That's because this guy is too stupid to figure out who are the informants and who are actual employees trying to make a living, and I do not reward stupidity…it sets a terrible precedent" Zane said "So what do you want to know?" he asked resigned to what was going to happen

"The usual, anything new from Tartaros?" Hayate asked

"No" Zane said

"Yes" Fay said

"Why do I even bother?" Zane muttered getting up and leaving to make himself something to drink

"So what is it?" Hayate asked Fay after Zane left

"Tartaros has managed to recruit young Erika Scarlet and now are ready to make their move on the Emperor" Fay answered

"When?" he simply asked

"At the annual ball"

"Hmm at least 3 of the Gods are going to be there, I doubt Tartaros has members stronger than us which means at least one of them is on their side…probably Jaster" Hayate sighed "What about Zale, you guys must have something on him right?"

"Like I told the nice young girl who came here earlier he's very careful with what he says and does, even in his private life, we've got nothing on him" Zane said having returned with colorful drink in hand

"I see" Hayate sighed again

"Oh and remember that the Tartaros members are all going to be careful and not do anything conspicuous until they're ready to enact their plan, so remember to keep a watchful eye" Fay advised

"Will do" Hayate said

"Hey look it's that girl I was talking to earlier!" Zane said happily as he looked outside

"She's got a sizeable group with her" Hayate noted after he came to watch the group

"That's because they're the ones who came here illegally before Zale gave them his protection" Fay explained

"Ah so they're the ones Riza is mad about" Zane said

"So where are they going?" Fay asked

"Probably to Zale's awesome mansion" Zane answered

"What?" Hayate asked

"Well it is an awesome mansion I mean there's so much awesome stuff in there! There's literally a hot tub in his master bedroom, does the Emperor have something like that? No because that's how awesome Zale's mansion is!" Zane answered excitedly

"I meant why are they going there?" Hayate asked

"Well that girl was clear on their intent to stop Tartaros so I guess they're working with Zale" Fay explained

"If you're fast enough I'm sure you can talk to them…then again it is you, so speed doesn't matter as much as do you think they could help you out" Zane said

"He's leaving" Fay said calmly as she could hear the elevator going down

"Good" Chaos sighed taking off his mask "Why did I ever pick Zane as a name?"

"Because you couldn't think of anything else at the time" Fay replied

"True…damn Hayate moves fast, he's already following them. I've never seen anyone like him; makes you wonder how Tartaros thinks they can beat him there's no way in hell that Erika could beat him, he'd kill Jaster in the blink of an eye, and it looks like Zale might be on Hayate's side so…" Chaos trailed off

"They have their ways" Fay said heading to the elevator

"Where do you think you're going?" Chaos asked

"I have my own life to deal with if you don't mind" she said entering the elevator and going down, waving happily at Chaos who had an annoyed look on his face

"When will those two just admit they love each other?" Chaos muttered as he turned back to watch the Fiore mages and Kat head towards Zale's mansion "Those poor kids, they have no idea what's in store for them" he said with a thin smile


	13. The Games Begin

"Hey Zale it's us!" Natsu called out happily as he pounded on the door

"Zale's not available at the moment, please leave a message after I'm done talking." Keji called back from inside the mansion

"When will he become available then?" Natsu asked

"How should I know? I'm just his manservant" Keji responded

"Looks like we'll have to come back later then" Mirajane said

"Wait all he said is that Zale's not available at the moment, he didn't say that Zale isn't in the mansion right now" Kat said

"Leave it to me!" Mavis said confidently before phasing through the door

"I meant that we could wait out here" Kat sighed

Mavis didn't hear though and started wondering through the large mansion looking for either Zale or Keji to talk to. She was able to find Keji sitting on a couch with a book over his face, she got closer and could hear him snoring and was surprised that every breath he took was lifting the book up before it would gently float down to cover his face again. Mavis wondered how he could fall asleep after just talking to them, but decided to not wake him up and find Zale on her own. The mansion was big though and she found herself lost very quickly, it didn't help that the statues in the house were creeping her out and several times she felt like the paintings on the wall were following her movement.

"Why do rich guys always want these things in their house? I can pay like 5 jewel to go to a museum and see it there, even if it's the 'real' thing I don't understand why you would pay millions of jewel just to say that you own it" Mavis muttered while trying to calm herself down

After a few minutes of wondering around she found herself outside the entrance to the living room where they had talked earlier, why it was so hard to find was beyond her. She could hear a conversation going on between Zale and another man, but she couldn't hear the specifics and pressed her ear to the door to hear what was going on.

"No good, still can't pick up what they're talking about" Mavis muttered

"That's a shame, neither can I" Keji said standing above her with his ear pressed on the door which startled her

"When did you wake up?" Mavis asked in shock

"Maybe thirty seconds ago it's all hazy really" he answered

"You should get that looked at" Mavis advised

"Maybe, but why are you in here little one? I thought I told you guys that Zale wasn't available at the moment, did you think I was lying?" he asked

"Well I personally didn't think you were lying" Mavis replied sheepishly

"Still doesn't answer the question" Keji said switching which ear he pressed against the door hoping to hear better

"Well one of our members said that Zale was probably still in the mansion so I came in here to investigate…in hindsight I think she meant that we could wait for him rather than leave" Mavis explained

"I know you're out there Keji" Zale called out

"I'd be worried if you didn't know I was spying on you guys" Keji responded

"Oh in that case you can come in then" Zale said sarcastically

"Shall we?" Keji asked

"I think he was being sarcastic" Mavis said

"Nonsense!" Keji smiled before he pushed the doors open and walked in while dragging Mavis with him. Zale was sitting with a disappointed look on his face and sipping some tea; across him was a young man somewhere in his mid twenties, he had black hair that was combed back, was wearing what looked like an expensive suit, like Zale was drinking tea with a disappointed look on his face, and had a large tome that he kept next to him

"I was being sarcastic you know" Zale sighed

"Oh well then you should have just said that then. You are in the middle of a conversation with a man who makes laws and therefore does not partake in sarcasm, so I just thought you adopted the same mannerism as your guest like you normally do" Keji explained taking a seat while making Mavis sit next to him

"…what?" Zale asked thoroughly confused by Keji's explanation

"He's right you know" the man said

"What?" Zale asked again

"You were imitating my speech earlier you just didn't know it" he explained

"I'm sorry Jaster"

"No need, but I think it's good your manservant showed up when he did. It's time for me to get going anyway, oh and remember to arrive ON TIME for the ball for once" Jaster said finishing his tea before getting up

"I'll try" Zale muttered

"Well good day then Zale" Jaster said shaking Zale's hand "And good day to you manservant" he said nodding at Keji before leaving

"See it was a good thing that I chose to ignore your sarcasm" Keji said after Jaster left

"I thought you didn't know I was being sarcastic?" Zale asked

"I lied" Keji shrugged

"I see, so what brings you here little one?" he asked Mavis after he was sure Jaster wouldn't hear them

"Well…" Mavis started

"Zale it appears there is a large group of people here to either visit you or rob you" Jaster said loudly

"They're with me" Mavis explained

"Don't kill them Jaster" Zale called back "Manservant go receive our guests" he ordered

"Aye aye sir" Keji said

"Is he really fine with you calling him that?" Mavis asked

"I don't know but I don't pay him to be 'fine' with the names I give him" Zale replied pouring himself some more tea and then pouring some for Mavis

"This place is awesome!" Gajeel said with wonder as Keji led the group into the living room

"I told you" Natsu said

"Welcome everyone, Keji why don't you prepare some more tea for us?" Zale said standing up to greet the group with the same smile he had greeted Natsu when they first met

"Manservant away!" Keji said with mock excitement as he left

"It's nice to meet you all" Zale said after they had all sat down "I doubt you all came here unannounced just to get free tea and tour my mansion, is it about Tartaros?" Zale asked

"Yep, they're ready to make their move for power at the annual ball in the Imperial Palace" Cobra answered

"You're new" Zale said looking at Cobra with some interest

"Yeah I wasn't part of this group when they came here, but I'm stuck with them for the time being" Cobra explained

"I see, and how do you know this?" Zale asked

"I have very sensitive ears and I overheard a conversation between two women who are in Tartaros that detailed their plans." Cobra explained

"Do you know who they were?" Zale asked

"Yes the one being recruited was named Erika, the other one was named Silva Freidman" Cobra answered

"Are you sure it was Silva Friedman?" Zale asked

"I can hear people's thoughts and she introduced herself as Silva to Erika but hid her last name, she was thinking about it though so I know that it was Friedman" Cobra said confidently

"Why do you want to know?" Jura asked

"Silva Friedman is head of the Ishvalan White Ops, professional assassins pretty much. I always heard that members of Tartaros were ingrained in the higher parts of society, but if Silva's part of Tartaros then that could mean the rest of the White Ops are with her, not good." Zale sighed

"So what do we do?" Kat asked

"Nothing, Tartaros is considered a legal guild here so being a member isn't a crime. We have to wait for them to make their move at the ball tomorrow; Hayate and members of the Royal Guard will be there so it's not like Tartaros can just walk in and run the place" Zale answered

"Wait but if we wait till Tartaros makes their move then people might die! We can't just let that happen!" Lucy objected

"Welcome to Ishval sweetheart" Keji said bringing in a fresh pot of tea "Doesn't matter what someone might do in the future, if you don't have any proof then nothing's gonna happen"

"Maybe we can tip things in the Emperor's favor then" Erza said

"Meaning…?" Kagura asked

"Zale would it be possible for you to get invitations for all of us to the ball?" Erza asked

"You're talking to a nobleman kid, I can get you invitations even if the ball happened yesterday" Zale bragged

"What does that even mean?" Gray asked

"He says things like this all the time, just go with it" Keji sighed as he poured Gray some tea

"I get it, if we're at the ball then we can help everyone else out and hopefully prevent Tartaros from being successful" Ichiya realized

"Just one thing though" Keji said

"Which is?" Mirajane asked

"The Emperor is big on tradition, so you'll need to be dressed in traditional Ishvalan clothing" Zale explained

"But we don't have anything like that" Eve objected

"Not to worry I am the proud owner of lots of traditional clothing…both men and women's" Zale said proudly

"Why did you buy women's clothing?" Milliana asked

"He's too rich for his own good" Keji muttered

They spent the next few hours trying on the clothing that Zale had in his wardrobe; strangely he had clothes of all sizes so Wendy and Chelia were able to find clothing to wear. Kagura was happy with the pantsuit she was given as it was far more suited to her style rather than the puffy dress she had worn in Crocus, in fact all the women's clothing seemed well suited for combat. It was the men's clothing that was difficult to wear; Natsu was having trouble seeing with all the frills on his shirt, the clothing was too tight for Gray to strip, while Laxus and Orga nearly choked to death due to the collars. Keji was forced to give them lessons on how to wear the clothing properly while Zale discussed how to deal with the innocent bystanders with Erza and Hibiki whom he had deemed the smartest in the group. After everyone had been fitted, Erza explained what they would do in order to make sure that they could rescue as many bystanders as possible while fighting Tartaros.

"Hibiki will be in charge of the evacuation as his magic is suited for coordinating people; Mirajane, Milliana, and Keji will protect the civilians as they leave the palace. Wendy, Chelia you two stay back and provide support and healing for everyone who will be fighting Tartaros" Erza explained

"Good plan, what about the Gods though?" Lyon asked

"Hayate and I will deal with Jaster and maybe Nameless if he turns out to be on Tartaros' side, nobody but us can deal with them you guys would get killed if you tried fighting them" Zale said

"Alright then looks like we're set then" Jura said

"You are all welcome to stay here for the night if you would like" Zale offered

"That's okay we already have a hotel we're staying at" Hibiki said politely

"Very well then you guys should come here tomorrow at around six, the ball starts at seven thirty and we should probably arrive on time this year." Zale said "I bid you all a fond farewell then"

After they had left Jura decided it would be a good idea for them to relax and tour the city, it would be their only chance to do it for fun. Everyone agreed and split into groups to see what Kadessa had to offer: Bacchus and Ichiya sampled drinks from as many bars as they could while the tri-men accompanied them to do as much flirting as possible; Erza, Lucy, Kagura, and Milliana went off together to visit Kadessa's malls while everyone else decided to tour the city together except for Kat who went back to the hotel and Mavis who followed her.

"Any reason why you keep following me around?" Kat asked

"Yeah, you remind me of someone I knew but whenever I try and picture that person I get nothing so I figured if I keep following you then my memory will be restored" Mavis explained

"How can I possibly remind you of someone who you knew 150 years ago?" Kat asked

"You two tend to talk very dismissively towards others you think are stupid regardless of their status, you both like working alone but are good at it, and both of you are fine with the idea of killing someone" Mavis explained

"Go talk to my Master about that, he's the ass who trained me this way" Kat said

"And that's another thing, you both hate the Masters who trained you but are secretly thankful for the skills they taught you" Mavis added which irritated Kat who decided to just go to sleep and avoid talking to this girl "Wait don't go to sleep, I still want to talk to you about things!"

This only encouraged Kat to sleep just to spite Mavis who was annoying her, besides what gave her the right to comment on the relationship between Kat and Chaos who simply left her alone one day to travel to Ishval? Everyone else returned from their separate adventures in the city and were all happy to have at least spent one day relaxing and having a good time. The next day they went to Zale's house at around six like he had told them so they could all get ready for the ball.

"So do you know who's going to be at the party?" Orga asked

"The Emperor and his daughter will be there along with Hayate. Hayate's sister Riza and her squad will be there for guard duty, Jaster and Silva should be there as well, maybe Nameless, oh and a bunch of nobles but they're not important" Zale answered

"Are you all ready?" Keji asked while adjusting the bow tie he had on

"Wait how come you get to wear a tuxedo but we have to wear these frilly things?" Natsu asked

"I'm a servant remember? I wear this so the nobles can all ignore me and feel better about themselves besides it's not like Zale here will care if you rip them apart to fight better" Keji answered

"Exactly I plan on doing that the moment the fight begins" Zale said while combing back his hair

After everyone was ready Zale took them to the carriages that would take them to the Imperial Palace, unfortunately it was a bumpy ride and every dragon slayer but Wendy was suffering from motion sickness. Laxus did his best to hide it but as Mirajane pointed out, his face was turning from red to blue and then to green. Thankfully the trip wasn't too long and they arrived before anyone could throw up on themselves. It looked like the Emperor had pulled out all the stops for this event as the moment they walked inside the palace they were greeted with a large amount of decorations, entertainers, and more. The ball was supposed to celebrate the history of Ishval and there were tapestries that covered the walls that depicted major events. The Emperor was standing with this daughter overlooking the event with a pleasant smile on his face; Hayate was standing behind them wearing a tuxedo and keeping a close eye on everything that was going on.

"Everyone I'd like to thank you for coming to this auspicious ball to celebrate our great country's history, I do hope you enjoy yourselves on this fine evening" he announced to applause from the party goers

"Well now that the speech is out of the way we can enjoy ourselves" Zale said

"That's the speech?" Lucy asked

"Normally it's about two sentences longer and I can't stand it which is why Keji and I usually arrive late" Zale explained

"Remind me how you became a God with that low attention span?" Lucy asked

"I don't actually remember how I became one, it's certainly been a while that's for sure" Zale said before leaving to get himself a drink, Lucy sighed at his casual attitude especially considering the circumstances.

"Well there's Zale and he's with those group of people Zane told me about so I guess he's on our side then, that's good that'll mean that even if Nameless isn't with us we can handle things here" Hayate told the Emperor

"Calm down Hayate, Tartaros isn't going to stall its attack if you're not having fun!" the Emperor said

"Dad I think maybe you're being a little too calm" his daughter said

"Oh Lyla you're only fourteen and still learning about the world, it's important that when there's a situation you can't control you have to sit and relax" he said

"He's right you know" Fay said coming with two drinks in hand "The great warriors never stressed out before a battle, so here take a drink" she continued handing Hayate a drink

"I'm good" he muttered

"Come on Jayce told me to give you that drink, if that crazed psycho is calmer than you then there's a problem"

"I guess one wouldn't hurt" Hayate sighed downing the drink in a single gulp "Where is Jayce?"

"Showing off in front of the nobles" Fay said pointing to Jayce who was doing elaborate tricks with his magic which entertained the sizeable crowd of mostly women around him. Although he stopped mid trick when he noticed Lucy, he squinted his eyes to get a better look before his eyes lit up instantly.

"Lucy!" he called out excitedly before flipping over the crowd and running over to her

"Lucy I think someone's calling you" Mirajane said

"Who?" Lucy asked

"Him" Mirajane said with a smile pointing at Jayce who was fast approaching

"Lucy! It's me, Jayce!" he declared after finally reaching her

"Who?" Lucy asked which crushed Jayce inside

"You don't remember me? I'm your cousin!" Jayce said with a hurt look

"Lucy how many mystery cousins do you have?" Mirajane asked

"Wait were you one of my toys too?" Lucy asked

"What? Could a toy defend you from a group of bullies who thought it'd be fun to pick on the rich girl?" Jayce asked indignantly

"Ah! Jayce it's you!" Lucy realized after thinking on the memory

"So this one exists right?" Mirajane asked

"Yeah Jayce exists, but I haven't seen him in so long that I forgot about him" Lucy explained

"I was your only playmate! How could you forget about me?" Jayce asked in shock

"Well my parents told me to forget about you so I guess I did" Lucy explained

"Oh, that makes sense just a child doing what her parents told her. Don't worry Lucy I forgive you, come on you're old enough to drink right? Of course you are, let's get some wine and we'll catch up" he said leading her off

"I've seen that guy somewhere" Kat said after coming to talk to Mirajane

"Apparently he's Lucy's cousin but they haven't seen each other in a while and he's very excited" Mirajane explained

"I see" Kat said now thankful that she didn't get his number earlier

Hayate had watched the sight with some curiosity as he'd never seen Jayce this happy to see a girl before, but he returned his focus to weeding out who was on Tartaros' side. Besides Jaster he wasn't sure who to treat as an enemy, if Tartaros was as high up as Zane and Fay believed then that means people he knew and trusted were sure to be part of the guild. Perhaps the Emperor was right, just relax until something happens and then deal with it accordingly. Suddenly he could hear some hushed whisperings as people pointed at the door leading to the room where a man had recently entered and was adjusting his cuffs before looking up at Hayate and cocking his head to the side. He was wearing a yin and yang mask except the symbol was sideways so the dots were where his eyes were.

"Nameless" Hayate muttered

"He finally came!" the Emperor said excitedly

"I don't know if you should be so excited your highness" Fay said

"Having three Gods on our side would make quelling Tartaros easier right?" Lyla asked

"Let's hope he's with us" Hayate sighed

"Who's that?" Laxus asked

"Well I'll be… Nameless finally showed up to a social event" Keji said with some surprise

"Wearing a mask? He knows it's not one of those mask balls right?" Hibiki asked

"He doesn't care in the slightest" Jura explained

"He doesn't have any weapons though; maybe he doesn't know what's going on?" Laxus wondered

"I don't know, he's guarding his thoughts which is new" Cobra said in response to Laxus

"You can read minds?" Laxus asked

"No just really good hearing" Cobra answered

An hour passed by with nothing out of the ordinary happening, Kat had focused magic to her eyes to look for anything but everything looked normal. Cobra had indentified Silva for Kat, but Silva was doing nothing besides talking to a pretty red haired girl who looked like she wanted to be somewhere else. The suspense was getting to Kat at this point and she was getting mad at Tartaros for not letting her enjoy herself while they did nothing. Finally though Silva nodded to the redhead before pulling out a gun from nowhere and shooting the guard she was talking to in the head.

"Finally!" Erika said undoing her braids "Let's get this party started!"

She snapped her fingers and four magic circles appeared next to her and four golems rose up made of the same material the floor was, each one was eight feet tall and wielded a spear

"Now remember guys don't kill the nobles, just kill the guards and then we're good to go" she instructed

"Guys it's happening!" Kat yelled out

"Kat, don't yell it's not polite" Jura chided

"What? Did you not see the dude get shot or the four golems that were summoned by that chick?" Kat asked in disbelief

"Kat what's going on, your thoughts are panicked but everything looks normal" Cobra said

"People getting shot is normal?" Kat asked "Shit, someone's messing up what you all see I'm fine because I had magic in my eyes" she realized before pulling out her revolver she had snuck in and spinning the cylinder hoping she could get a good chamber

"It's the second chamber Kat! _Dispelling bullets_ for all" the sprite said before leaving

"Oh thank god" Kat thought before firing all six bullets into the air and pulling out her pistol and started firing at the golems who were killing unknowing guards at an alarming rate "Come on turn around and fight me" she hoped and sure enough the golems turned around to see who was shooting at them and started moving towards Kat

The dispelling bullets burst sending a rain of magic throughout the entire room, the golems stopped in place momentarily before crumbling to the ground. Soon people were rubbing their eyes and people started screaming when they saw the dead guards in front of them.

"Hmm looks like that girl broke the illusion huh? No matter it's not like they can stop us now" Silva said,

Jaster immediately snapped his fingers and a set of runes appeared in a circle surrounding Zale, before anyone could move Zale was hit suddenly hit by a torrent of electricity; after it was over he slumped to the floor with smoke rising from his body.

"Zale!" Natsu screamed

"Get everyone out now" Zale muttered weakly

"Wendy tend to him! Everyone else target those two women, we'll leave Jaster to Hayate" Erza ordered quickly

"Hey Silva where's our backup?" Erika asked curiously

"They're right here" Silva said opening up a portal and mages poured out of the gate to engage the surviving guards and the Fiore mages

"Jaster" Hayate muttered darkly and in a blur moved behind the Lawmaker with a blade protruding from his palm, he stabbed down but was surprised to see that his blade was blocked by Nameless who was standing in front of him "You're with them too huh?"

"So it seems" Nameless said before kneeing Jaster in the gut and kicked him across the room "My blade" he said sticking his hand out

"Coming right up" Silva said tossing Nameless a short sword

"There's too many of them!" Natsu said as he punched away another mage

"It looks like that Silva is the one controlling that portal if we can get to her we can cut off all these reinforcements" Jura said sending a large group of Tartaros mages flying with his rock pillars

"Harvey we need to cut our way to Silva, she's controlling the portal!" Riza declared as she cut down another mage with the _mage slayer, _he nodded and followed her as they made a break towards Silva

Meanwhile Hayate was having trouble with Nameless, despite his vastly superior speed it seemed like Nameless knew what Hayate was going to do and always blocked and countered him. What was worse was that things were getting harder to see for Hayate and he wondered if it was the blood over his eyes or something else. Nameless could see the problems Hayate was having and went on the offensive, Hayate was feeling groggy now and had difficulty defending himself; he blocked another strike from Nameless but didn't notice a second blade Nameless had hidden in his sleeve, with one slash Hayate's left arm was severed from his shoulder. Nameless kicked Hayate down and went to finish him off, but before he could he dodged a large ice dragon and mallet sent his way by Lyon and Gray

"I'll deal with you later" Nameless told Hayate turning to face his new adversaries

"I don't care if you're a God you're going down" Gray declared

"Ha, don't think for a second that you could do this on your own" Lyon bragged

"Who are you talking to?" Nameless asked appearing right behind them, before they could move he smacked their heads with his hilts which knocked them out cold "Too slow"

"Hayate!" the Emperor yelled in shock

"Your highness we need to get you and Lyla out of here now!" Fay declared grabbing him and Lyla and running out of the room

"Oh no you don't" Nameless said calmly before he set off after them

"She doesn't stand a chance on her own, I'm going after them!" Kat said after shooting down another mage

"You can't face him he's too strong!" Laxus said

"She won't be alone I'll go with her" Mavis declared

"For once I'm glad you're following me" Kat said with a smile before heading off after Nameless

"Looks like everyone's evacuated" Hibiki said

"Not everyone, we need to get Zale out of here so Wendy and I can treat him properly" Chelia said

"I'll be fine" Zale said slowly getting up

"Mr. Zale you shouldn't fight, I don't think your body can handle the stress!" Wendy said worriedly

"It'll be fine, now sit back I'll clear the room" he said calmly while putting his hands together

"How?" Wendy asked

"Like this" he said with a smile while raising one hand up, a medium sized ball of light appeared in the gap and Zale released his magic aura that brought Wendy, Keji, and Chelia to their knees

"I thought you took care of him?" Erika asked Jaster as she observed the new development

"I shocked him with 2 amps of electricity, that's nearly 3 times the lethal amount for humans" Jaster said in amazement

"Well next time instead of nearly 3 times the lethal amount why don't you just use the lethal amount?" Erika asked summoning two golems to keep them safe

"_Fairy Law Activate!"_ Zale shouted as light enveloped the room

**Author's note**

**I finally updated it! Yeah it is a longer chapter but I felt like I was taking things too slowly for the last few chapters so I wanted to get the important parts of the story going. **


	14. Betrayal

"What the hell was that?" Kat asked turning around to see the blinding light

"Someone cast a _Fairy Law_ I think, but it's weird it feels a bit different from the one that I used to use" Mavis answered

"Every person is different right? I doubt that everyone casts the spell in the same way"

"I guess so, either way someone on our side used it so we should be focused on finding the Emperor before Nameless does"

They ran down the long corridors as fast as they could desperately trying to reach the Emperor and Fay. Along the way they were passing what looked like corpses of guards that Nameless had cut apart on his way to the Emperor, but these bodies were wearing different uniforms than the guards they had seen earlier and their faces were pale like had been dead for years.

"These guys are creeping me out, what are they?" Kat asked

"They're like me in a way" Mavis replied

"Meaning?"

"They're all dead, but someone dragged them up to the world of the living to fight. It's terrible but it looks like they've all been killed" Mavis sighed

"Not that one" Kat said pointing at one who got up to block their path

"You two have his scent I will not let you pass!" it said drawing its sword

"What?"

"I think he means that we're his enemy" Mavis said

"Oh well I'm sorry sir but we're kind of in a hurry" Kat said shooting it three times in the head with her pistol

"What was that for?" Mavis exclaimed

"You heard that thing; it said we weren't going to get past it and we don't have much time so I shot it. I still wonder what it meant by saying we have 'his' scent" Kat explained before running ahead

Nameless was getting tired of these dead guards that were being summoned to get in his way; they didn't do much but buy a few more seconds for the Emperor. All they did was hiss was at him before he'd cut them apart, but he noticed that the guards were becoming fewer and fewer as he kept going which meant that whoever was summoning them was getting tired. He could hear footsteps and knew he was getting closer and finally caught up to the Emperor's group in the Emperor's bedroom.

"Of all places to go you guys run here?" he asked

"Oh great, your highness please tell me there's a secret door here you and Lyla can use to get out of here" Fay said turning around to face Nameless

"I'm sure there are some, but only Hayate knows where they are" the Emperor replied

"Why does the bodyguard know how to get out but not the person he's supposed to protect?" Fay asked

"Don't worry if you give the Emperor to me you'll get his much more competent daughter as your new leader" Nameless said advancing towards Fay

"Oh no you don't!" Fay said while summoning five guards who charged at Nameless

"So you're the one who's been summoning these annoying things?" Nameless asked from behind Fay who stopped the summoned creatures from attacking Lyla who was somehow where Nameless was originally standing

"What?" Fay exclaimed in shock

"Time to sleep" Nameless said hitting Fay across the head with the hilt of his sword knocking her out which also got rid of the guards she summoned earlier "Now your highness just come with me peacefully and your daughter gets to live and rule this place much better than you ever did"

"Scum, you touch my daughter and I'll make sure you regret it!" the emperor threatened

"You're in no position to make threats" Nameless said before knocking the Emperor out with a blow to the head and picking him up

"Let my dad go!" Lyla shouted

"You're going to stop me?" he asked

"No we are!" Kat and Mavis yelled rushing into the room

"And you are?" Nameless asked

"Doesn't matter, all that matters is I'm stopping you from taking the Emperor" Kat replied pointing her guns at Nameless

"I see" Nameless sighed, he placed the Emperor gently on the ground and brandished his short sword

"Be careful with your guns Kat we're in close quarters with three bystanders" Mavis advised

"Well let's see what spin I get then" Kat said spinning her revolver's cylinder

"Fun stuff Kat, it's the sixth chamber! _Mystery Bullets _for everyone!" the sprite said before leaving

"Interesting now what do those do?" Nameless asked appearing next to her and taking the gun from her hand to examine it

"When did you get here?" Kat asked trying to shoot him with her other pistol before Nameless disarmed her quickly

"I've always been here" he said before kneeing her in the gut which made her double over in pain, he picked her up by the hair before slamming her into the wall, and then he stabbed her in the midsection with his sword which left her pinned to the wall.

"Kat!" Mavis called out

"You should be focusing on yourself before worrying about others" Nameless told her

"Oh great you can see me too" Mavis sighed wondering what the point of hiding herself was

"Indeed but don't think you're safe because you're a ghost" Nameless said, he held his hand out over the floor and suddenly a dark blade rose up from the ground. The blade made Mavis queasy just looking at it, it was an interestingly designed sword: the blade had multiple curves that ended in a sharp edge, the hilt was curved as well, and the pommel was a stone that was pulsing with a dark aura. Nameless grabbed it and gave a few practice swings before he advanced on Mavis.

The light from the _Fairy Law_ lasted a few minutes before it finally began to disappear; Tartaros mages were lying on the ground but some were still alive and were able to get up slowly. Erika and Jaster were safe thanks to the golems Erika had summoned to protect them; Silva was unhurt as well with a strange blue aura surrounding her. Everyone loyal to the Emperor was standing in place all shocked that Zale could somehow muster that much power, the Fairy Tail mages were shocked that he knew the spell in the first place. Zale himself had fallen to his knees, the stress of being hit by Jaster's electricity and casting the _Fairy Law_ was too much for his body to take.

"Dang Zale I had no idea you could do that" Keji said admiringly

"Well…sometimes….you find a way" Zale managed out, each breath a struggle for him

"So how come the spell only affected Tartaros, the explosion enveloped us all right?" Keji asked

"Because…it targets…people I want to hurt" Zale explained

"I see" Keji sighed before turning to face Zale with a smile "Good thing I decided to wait then" he said before releasing his magical aura that came in the form of a powerful wind.

"You too Keji?" Zale sighed

"Sorry old man, a guy can only be called manservant so many times before he snaps" Keji said lifting Zale up with his wind magic before sending a concussive blast at Zale which sent him crashing through the palace walls. "Oh that felt good" Keji said with a large grin

"You're on their side too Mr. Keji?" Wendy asked

"...no I just felt like blasting Zale into the next county" Keji sighed "Maybe this will clear things up for you" he said before unleashing a hurricane force wind at Wendy and the other mages which sent them across the room, only Jura and Laxus managed to stay close to him.

"I guess timing really is everything" Riza said while defending herself and Harvey with her _mage slayer _

"It really is" Harvey noted before stabbing his captain in the back with his sword after the wind died down, Riza looked down in shock at the blade before turning around to her now former lieutenant and uttering a soft "why" before he took his sword out. She fell to the ground while Harvey walked towards Silva who was helping the surviving Tartaros mages stand.

"Good job Harvey, now go finish off her brother over there and then when Nameless shows up with the Emperor we can all leave" Silva said

"No need he's already kicked the bucket" Harvey said while cleaning his sword of Riza's blood

"Geez Nameless made short work of him, maybe I should be worrying about keeping him in place rather than Jaster" Silva thought observing Hayate's motionless body

"I've got the Emperor" Nameless said arriving with the Emperor draped over his shoulder "Ah I see Keji's taken care of Zale"

"Indeed, we're all set" Silva said opening up a portal in front of Nameless who tossed the Emperor in and then jumped in after him before the portal closed. Silva opened up another one for Harvey and the surviving Tartaros mages to get into, before Harvey jumped in though he took Riza's _mage slayer_ from her hands before leaving. Keji was locked in a ferocious fight with Laxus and Jura at the moment and was having a tough time disengaging from the fight and leaving.

"Silva, can you hold that portal a little longer?" Keji asked while dodging a lighting roar from Laxus

"Take your time" Silva called back

"Thank you!" Keji replied, he sent a flurry of wind blades at Jura who brought up a giant rock pillar in front of him that protected him from the first few blades but the final one broke the wall and hit Jura across the shoulder and sent him crashing into the wall. Keji then sent a gale force wind at Laxus who tried staying in place, but the winds were too strong and he was also sent flying; Keji smirked before jumping into the portal that Silva left open for him.

"I'll summon Sagittarius and he can shoot her while she isn't looking" Lucy called out while pulling out the key

"You can't, you aren't strong enough yet" Jayce said grabbing her hand and preventing her from summoning the spirit "You won't hurt her"

"But…" Lucy started

"No buts, just stay back and let them leave we need to focus on helping out the wounded especially Hayate" Jayce replied

"But it looks like he's dead" Lucy said

"Don't worry he's fine" Jayce said with an assuring smile and sneaking over to aid his commander

"Alright, you two get in" Silva said to Jaster and Erika

"Aww, but I want to keep fighting!" Erika protested

"No buts get in the damn portal or I'm leaving you here"

"Okay"

"Wait, no if you don't get in then I'm not letting you fight the even stronger people we'll be facing after this" Silva sighed

"Oh fine" Erika grumbled while picking up Jaster and then walking into the portal

"Alright kids it was fun playing with you but it's on to bigger and better things for us" Silva said condescendingly before walking towards the exit nonchalantly

"Oh no you don't!" Milliana exclaimed while running at Silva who didn't seem to notice or care. Milliana used her claws and slashed at Silva's back. However right as the claws were about to hit her, the blue aura from earlier appeared around Silva. Milliana was confused as her hand stayed in place but it felt like she was still slashing downward; she retracted her hand and used her Nekōsoku Tube to constrain Silva. Silva gave out an audible sigh before pulling out a sword with many runes inscirbed on it; she cut apart the tube with one slash and then turned around with a shotgun in hand and shot Milliana point blank in the chest.

"You bitch!" Kagura screamed unsheathing her Archenemy and charging at Silva

"Ah to be a kid again" Silva said as she opened up a portal in front of her and walked into it; the portal closed just before Kagura stabbed Silva.

"I swear I will find you, and I will kill you" Kagura said barely containing her rage


	15. After the Fire

The Palace hall was in a terrible state after Tartaros had left: the hall had been severely damaged during the attack, bodies were lying everywhere, and everyone was trying their best to take care of the injured. Jayce quickly took command of the situation; he had managed to get Hayate into a stable condition and he ordered a group of guards to take him to a safe area inside the palace for further treatment, he also got Riza taken care of as soon as he could, and looked for more guards who could find what happened to Lyla. Meanwhile Kagura, Wendy, and Chelia were struggling to keep Milliana alive at the moment, despite their best efforts Milliana's wounds weren't healing at all.

"How is this not working?" Wendy asked before trying again to heal Milliana

"Can someone please come and help this girl?" Kagura shouted out, a few guards heard her and began to run towards them before Jayce stepped in their way.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? We need to focus on finding Lyla and making sure she's safe, if worse comes to pass and the Emperor dies then she's in charge!" Jayce reprimanded, the guards nodded before going towards the Emperor's bedroom

"You're just going to let her die?" Kagura seethed as she confronted Jayce who didn't back down

"Listen lady as much as I'd like to save your friend over there it's more important that we find the person who might become our Empress if she's still alive. I have a Kingdom to look out for I'd say that deserves my attention just a bit more than saving that girl" Jayce said bluntly "Now if you'll excuse me I have to make sure there aren't any other Tartaros mages lurking around in the Palace" he continued before running out of the hall

"Who the hell does he think he is" Kagura muttered angrily

"Although I don't agree with how he acted he is right that he has a nation to worry about" Erza said trying to calm Kagura down while coming over to help Milliana "Now how is your healing not working?"

"I don't know, no matter what we do the wounds keep reopening" Chelia answered

"Let me take a look" Erza said calmly, she looked over Milliana's wounds and noticed small red chips in the wounds; she carefully took one out to examine it. It looked like a shard of the bullet that Silva had shot earlier, strangely it turned black after a few seconds which made Erza suspicious "Now why did it do that?" Erza wondered aloud

"Maybe they're the reason why we can't heal Milliana?" Wendy offered

"That's what I'm thinking, we need to take these out carefully and hope we're in time" Erza said as they got to work

Meanwhile Mavis wasn't feeling so great herself; she couldn't remember what had happened when Nameless advanced on her with that strange sword. She rubbed her eyes before looking around; Kat was lying motionless on the floor as was Fay and Lyla. Mavis got up and ran to Kat to check up on her, strangely while there was a hole in her shirt where Nameless had stabbed her there was no wound on her body and she was breathing normally as well. Mavis went to Fay and Lyla to see if they were alive, both were still lying on the ground but they seemed to be alright.

"Why didn't he kill them, he seemed more than willing to kill Kat" Mavis wondered "Ah, looks like they're waking up"

"Your Highness!" Fay yelled after she opened her eyes

"He's gone" Mavis replied calmly

"Who are you?" Fay asked

"Just some ghost" Mavis sighed

"You don't look like a ghost to me" Fay said before poking Mavis in the head "In fact I can touch you"

"Huh?" Mavis muttered in shock before snapping back into her senses "That's new, but I'll deal with that later"

"Is Lyla okay?" Fay asked

"She'll probably feel a bit sore but other than that she'll be fine"

"Thank God" Fay sighed in relief before getting up slowly

"I'm surprised you can stand" Mavis said

"All he did was hit me over the head with his sword, he seemed rather reluctant to get into a fight I think he just wanted the Emperor" Fay replied

"Does anyone know what he looks like under that mask?"

"Nobody knows, hell nobody even knows what he does in his spare time… he's ultra secretive and even I can't follow him without him noticing" Fay explained

"He made short work of Hayate" Mavis said admiringly

"Hayate didn't use any magic though… rather he couldn't use any magic, something was clearly wrong with him. The way he was moving, any decent fighter could have beaten him"

"Well we should probably check out what happened to everyone else" Mavis declared

"Good idea" Fay said picking up Lyla gingerly "Need help carrying your friend?"

"That won't be necessary" Kat said

"Whoa, you're awake" Mavis said with a mix of surprise and relief

"Yeah barely though" Kat said poking at the hole in her shirt "Did one of you guys heal me while I was out?"

"No you were like that when I woke up" Mavis explained

"What happened to you guys after Nameless knocked me out?" Fay asked

"Well he pinned me to the wall with his sword, then he summoned one weird looking sword which he used on Mavis, but there was a dark aura being emitted and I couldn't see what he did exactly" Kat explained

"Could that be why I'm not a ghost anymore?" Mavis asked

"You're not a ghost anymore?" Kat asked in shock

"Maybe the sword has some weird power, then what happened?" Fay asked

"Well after that he went to me, pulled out the sword that attached me to the wall and then he poked me with that dark sword. He said something like 'you still have a part in these games', it's kind of fuzzy really" Kat explained as they started walking back

"Weird" Fay and Mavis said in unison

They walked on for a few minutes before running into the squad of guards that Jayce had sent looking for them. The guards filled them in on everything they had seen and of Tartaros' success in kidnapping the Emperor, but the fact that Lyla was safe gave them some hope that they could recover. Fay and the guards left with Lyla to find her a bed to let her sleep in leaving Kat and Mavis to help out with the recovery effort. A strange side effect to not being a ghost anymore was that Mavis had begun recovering her magic quickly which enabled her to help in healing any of the wounded. Kat was still feeling the effects of getting stabbed, and to make things worse she was getting a massive headache. She walked towards Laxus and Jura in the hopes that they could figure out what to do at this moment.

"Hey you two" she called out

"You're alive!" Jura called back

"Barely" she muttered as they came up to her "So what's the plan now?"

"Well first we have to account for our group and make sure they're safe" Jura answered

"Then what?" Kat asked

"We don't know, Hayate is missing an arm and Zale was blasted who knows where. Without those two we're up against two Gods on our own, not to mention that their elite members are almost as strong as those Gods" Laxus sighed

"Let's not forget we haven't even met their Master" Jura said ominously

"So did you fight Nameless?" Laxus asked

"Wasn't much of a fight really, he appeared behind me and pinned me to a wall with his sword" Kat sighed getting tired of reliving that battle

"Well if it makes you feel better we got manhandled by Keji" Jura said

"Wait Keji's on their side too!" Kat exclaimed

"Yep he showed his true colors after you left, and right we thought Zale had won it for us with that _Fairy Law _he casted" Laxus explained

"I thought only Fairy Tail members could do that though?" Kat asked

"That's what I thought" Laxus said "But we'll have to ask him when we find him"

"If he's still alive that is" Jura pointed out, there was some silence after that statement as each of them silently prayed for Zale's safety. Kat suddenly felt the headache rush back, this time it was even worse than before and it made her drop to her knees.

"What did he do to me?" Kat groaned out as she started shivering "Why is it so cold in here? And why is everything so dark?" she muttered

"Kat! Stay with me, we're getting help for you" Jura said sending as Laxus rushed off for help "What's wrong, what did Nameless do to you?"

"Everything!" she suddenly exclaimed before blacking out

Nameless waited patiently within the strange portal Silva had formed for him; he had no idea where he was, how the portal worked, or when he'd be let out. He glanced at the Emperor's body lying at his feet, that was the only guarantee he had of getting out of this strange place; it didn't take him long to realize that Silva was even more suspicious of him than she usually was. He had gained her respect when at her behest he slashed her across the eye before she could defend herself and prove to her that he was worthy of being a God. She gained his respect when she asked him to join Tartaros, the mere fact that she had tracked him down while others had failed made him impressed. But this mutual respect for each other was why they regarded each other with such suspicion, in fact he had already figured out a way to kill her if the time came.

"Oh looks like I have a way out now" he muttered as he saw a hole open a few feet away from him, he picked up the Emperor and walked towards the light. He looked around and saw Harvey alongside Silva who was opening two more portals where Keji, Erika, and Jaster walked out of. They were in a medium sized building in the middle of some hilly plains, although he didn't know how far they were from the Palace.

"Looks like we're all accounted for then" Silva said

"Harvey I didn't realize we were allies this entire time" Jaster said to Harvey who stayed silent

"So when do we get to meet the Master?" Keji asked trying to get rid of the awkward silence

"Right now actually" a voice called from upstairs, they all looked up to see a figure in a black coat that covered him from head to toe, alongside him was a teenage girl with blonde hair down to her shoulders "Congratulations are in order for all of you, a job well done!"

"Here you go" Nameless said tossing the Emperor at the figure who seemed surprised before quickly grabbing the Emperor before he hit the ground

"Why would you do that?" Jaster asked

"Because I got tired of holding him" Nameless shrugged

"It doesn't really matter whether he's alive or dead, we just need the body" the figure said dropping the Emperor on a couch "Now onto business!"

"Quick question Master, what about all the mages we left behind?" Keji asked

"Them? Oh don't worry, none of them were real" the Master dismissed

"Huh?" Erika asked in surprise

"Yes, those mages were dreamt up by this girl right here" the figure said pointing at the girl next to him who smiled at her mention

"Dreamt?" Silva asked curiously

"Yes this girl here has a rare magic indeed, _Dreamer Magic_ anything she dreams up while she's sleeping she can bring into the real world! No limits except that they're as powerful as she is. Why don't you introduce yourself to the nice people!" the Master said with excitement

"I'm Karmic! I'm fifteen years old; I enjoy baking pies, and fighting!"

"Okay then, so when I am I going to get to fight actual strong people?" Erika asked already bored

"Whoa, this girl summoned hundreds of mages to fight for us!" Keji exclaimed finally adding things up in his head

"Yes but notice how all they did was serve as a meat shields while we got the Emperor, meaning that while it's impressive she dreamt up so many it's not like they did too much" Nameless pointed out

"Exactly now onto business, I'm sure you're wondering what we're going to do now that we have the Emperor"

"I'll admit to a polite curiosity" Erika said

"Good, because we're going to be gathering a few things before heading to the Hall of Kings" the Master declared

"Well that explains why we needed the Emperor's body, but what are we getting beforehand?" Harvey asked

"We will need to gather a few lost artifacts and other things before my plan will reach fruition"

"And when will we hear about this plan?" Jaster asked

"In due time Lawmaker, now we'll need to split into teams for the sake of time. Jaster, Erika you two seem to get along so you're going to be a squad."

"Trust me, we don't" Jaster sighed

"What are you talking about, we did great last time!" Erika exclaimed with a bright smile

"I need you two to look in the ruins of old Kadessa for the Crown of the first Emperor"

"Sounds fun" Jaster sighed as Erika dragged him along as she walked out of the building

"Silva, Keji, and Harvey will travel together. You three will be given a special assignment so sit back after the meeting for the details. Let's see, Nameless and Karmic you two will be a squad an-"

"I'm working with her?" Nameless asked

"That's what I just said"

"I mean why am I working with her?"

"Because it seems like a good idea"

"Whatever" Nameless sighed

"I need you two to find an ancient blade said to control the very fabric of time"

"Does a thing like that actually exist?" Karmic asked

"Of course it does, but it's locked deep away due to its great powers….but now we need it so we're going to get it" the Master replied

"Fine let's get going" Nameless said turning to leave

"But he hasn't told us where to go" Karmic protested which made Nameless stop in place

"He doesn't know where it is, that's why he wants me to look for it" Nameless said "

"He's right" the Master said

"Oh and Harvey hand it over" Nameless said turning to face Harvey

"Hand what over?" Harvey asked

"Riza's _mage slayer_, I'll need it if I want to find that mystical blade faster" Nameless said stepping till he was a few feet from Harvey

"What if I said no?"

"I'd cut you down and take it from your body"

"Easy gentleman, I don't need my elite members killing each other. Mr. Ozaki would you please give Nameless the Slayer, and Nameless do you promise to give it back after we meet up again?" the Master said jumping between the two quickly

"Fine" they both said as Harvey tossed Nameless the silver handle, Nameless caught it and strapped it next to his short sword before turning around and leaving

"Wait for me!" Karmic said as she ran to catch up to Nameless who had already walked out of the building

"Now you three have the most important mission of all, I need you to go and find the ruins of the first Council Headquarters and survey it for me"

**Author's note**

Man that took a while to update, Second year of college just started so I've been focusing on classes which means barely any time for fics. Anyway it's nice to see Fairy Tail move onto Tartaros, which makes me feel all warm inside since that's what I've been writing about!

Although I feel Hiro Mashima could have been more subtle with the new guy Silver, to me he's either Gray's long last father (both named after colors, kind of look alike) or he's Ul's ex-husband (both really powerful ice mages explains why Ultear was so powerful as a child also Gray keeps having memories of Ul so there's that) both possibilities probably explain why he hates demons so much.


	16. Old Kadessa

It was easily past midnight and there were still lots of activity in the palace, Mavis was thoroughly exhausted and wanted to sleep, but strangely she still had the magic to continue to heal people. Wendy and Chelia and both exhausted their magic supply and were forced to go to sleep so Mavis was left alone to heal whoever came to her. She was working on Hayate trying to reattach the arm that Nameless had cut off; she had reattached many limbs in her day and could do it in her sleep which she practically did. She sensed something wrong even after she was done healing him though, she focused magic to her eyes and saw some strange multicolored magic inside him.

"Maybe this was why he wasn't fighting right?" she wondered as she went to dispel it but when she tried getting rid of it with her magic it rushed from Hayate to her hand "What the hell, get off me!" she exclaimed as she retracted her hand in panic, she struck it with her other light covered hand and it exploded on contact sending her flying into a wall

"What's going on?" Hayate asked groggily

"Oh you know magic that explodes when you purge it just normal stuff" Mavis explained rubbing her head

"I see" Hayate said "But I'm feeling much better so you have my thanks little one"

"Oh no problem just doing what I do best" Mavis muttered

"Wait since when does magic explode when you purge it?" Hayate asked with surprise

"Wait I thought you weren't surprised earlier" Mavis said "Wait why I am I focusing on that? Mr. Hayate do you know how that magic got inside you?" she asked

"Just call me Hayate, but I have no idea really. All I know is that during my fight with Nameless I couldn't see anything right, and it felt like I couldn't use my magic at all for some reason." He replied

"Well I'm guessing that magic I saw is the reason for all that but we need to figure out how it got into you. It had to have been snuck in because I didn't sense any magic use earlier except for what that blonde haired guy was doing" Mavis said

"That was Jayce, although those were just simple illusions so I doubt it was him"

"Well whoever did it had to have done it either right before the attack happened, or the magic reacted slowly and Tartaros just waited for it to take a hold of you before they began their attack" Mavis said "But I doubt we'll figure it out just talking like this, you should get some sleep which is what I'm going to do."

"You're probably right, thanks again for fixing me up… um what's your name?"

"Mavis Vermillion but just call me Mavis"

"Thank you Mavis, I appreciate everything you and your friends have done for Ishval" Hayate said with a weak smile before he lay down in his bed.

"Good night" Mavis whispered before she left the room

At the end of the attack there were about a dozen guards dead, Kat was suffering from an unknown ailment that even Mavis couldn't heal, and nobody knew where Zale was. Mavis was just glad to get to sleep at this point; she jumped on her bed and fell asleep quickly. For the first time in a while she dreamt of her time with Tartaros, she had been the youngest member so everyone was fond of her although everyone treated her as a child which annoyed her at times. Strangely she didn't see any of their S-class mages or the Master anywhere, she asked around but nobody would tell her what had happened to them. She finally saw a man alone in a corner reading a book, his face was blurred for some reason but he seemed happy to see her as he rubbed her hair affectionately when she approached him.

"What can I do for you little one?"

"Where is everyone?" Mavis asked

"What do you mean?" he asked

"Where's Master and where's all our S-class mages?" Mavis asked

"They all left and they won't be coming back anytime soon. They were too scared to help me, but maybe you'll help me?"

"How can I help you?"

"You'll know when the time comes" he said getting up, he looked around for a few moments before he walked out the door despite Mavis' cries for him to come back.

"Geez is everyone going crazy now?" Natsu asked

"Natsu!" Lucy said hitting him over the head

"Ow, look I think it's a fair question to ask given the circumstances" Natsu muttered while holding his head

"What's going on?" Mavis asked sleepily

"Well first the good news, Zale is alive and relatively unharmed" Lucy started

"Really, when did he get back?" Mavis asked becoming alert

"Oh around first thing in the morning, he was sitting in the Palace Kitchen drinking a cup of tea after the breakfast he had made for himself in fact I think he's still there" Lucy explained

"What?" Mavis asked confusedly

"Yeah…" Lucy trailed off herself unsure of Zale's actions

"Oh and the important part…Kat's gone off the deep end!" Natsu said bluntly

"Huh?"

"Yeah she woke up suddenly and is talking about getting revenge on somebody and when we tried reasoning with her, she just took her guns and threatened us with them. So we were hoping you could talk with her seeing as you were with her when she was last normal" Lucy said

"…what?" Mavis asked still confused

"Just come with us" Natsu said while heading out leaving Lucy and Mavis behind

Mavis got out of bed begrudgingly and followed Lucy to see what was up with Kat. She was still thinking about her dream and who that man in her dream was, she tried thinking of everyone she knew at Tartaros and even the founding members of Fairy Tail but none of them seemed like they could be him. She still wondered what he meant by getting help from her, if he was someone she once knew then he was most likely dead at this point.

"Anything wrong?" Lucy asked

"Well…" Mavis started, wondering whether to tell Lucy about her dream "I just had a weird dream nothing to worry about" she said

"If you say so" Lucy replied not entirely convinced but she was more worried about Kat to pursue the matter, there was a group of people around Kat's room holding back an angered Natsu.

"Let me in! I'm going to punch some sense into her if that's how she's going to act!" Natsu exclaimed

"What happened?" Lucy asked with concern

"Well Natsu tried talking to Kat but she immediately shot at him with explosive bullets from her revolver" Gajeel explained "Salamander you know she's just going to shoot at you again if you charge at her?"

"She's shooting at people?" Mavis exclaimed

"Well just Natsu actually as long as we didn't get too close to her then we weren't shot at, but she refuses to talk to any of us but when we mentioned your name she said she'd only talk to you" Mirajane explained

"Why me?" Mavis asked still wanting to go back to sleep

"I don't know but I doubt that's really Kat we're dealing with here" Cobra said coming with his breakfast in hand

"How do you know?" Gajeel asked

"Because I can actually hear her thoughts" Cobra answered "And those thoughts are… interesting to say the least"

"After this I'm going to back to sleep" Mavis muttered as she went to Kat's room. There were some char marks on the floor where Kat had probably shot at Natsu, but other than that the room was still in good shape. Kat was sitting on her bed with both her guns pointed at Mavis, she looked fairly normal but the look in her eyes was different than it normally was…it was filled with anger and confusion.

"Mavis Vermillion: prodigy, expert light mage, and S-class mage from Tartaros how nice to see you" Kat said sounding like she was barely containing the urge to scream

"Kat…how do you know that?" Mavis asked

"Kat? Who the hell is that?"

"So Cobra was right, you're not actually Kat just somehow inside her body right now… who are you? Mavis asked

"Oh you know just one of the many that was wronged by Tartaros in the past"

"Look I don't know what happened to Tartaros after I left to form my own guild, but I can guarantee you that we didn't harm anyone while I was there" Mavis said

"Oh right it's not like you I don't know… attacked the Council Headquarters, killed several members of the Magic Council, screwed the world over in a way you can't even imagine, oh and let's not forget locked me in some dark blade rather than just killing me!" the person exclaimed

"What are you talking about? We never ever attacked the Council; we were a legal guild while I was a member. Now again, I don't know what happened afterwards that got Tartaros declared a dark guild but I guarantee you it's not because we attacked the Magic Council…that's just asking to be killed" Mavis answered

"How do you forg- never mind, others probably manipulated your memory…just tell me where I am right now!" the person demanded

"You're in the Imperial Palace of Ishval, but more specifically you're in my friend Kat's body and I'd like you to get out of it!" Mavis commanded

"Great of all the places…" the person muttered

"Which one, Kat or Ishval?" Mavis asked

"Both, I hated dealing with the Ishvalan Emperor and of all the people to be trapped in…I get stuck in someone's who's the opposite gender" the person muttered

"So you're a guy?" Mavis asked

"Yes I'm a guy! Although why I was put in this girl is beyond me"

"Who are you?" Mavis finally asked

"You really don't remember me do you? It's Kaizus Strauss"

"Chairman?" Mavis asked suddenly remembering who he was

"Former Chairman actually, now how about you get out of me!" Kat yelled suddenly

"Kat is that you or Kaizus?" Mavis asked confusedly

"Both actually, do you mind leaving me alone while I work out this whole body sharing thing with this uh Kaizus character?" Kat asked politely

"Sure, as long as I get to sleep some more" Mavis muttered even more frustrated that she had been woken up

"What's going on is she fixed yet?" Natsu asked, Mavis looked at him before punching him in the gut knocking him out and then leaving to sleep, angrily muttering something under her breath

The only thing keeping Jaster from killing Erika to stop her from complaining about the mission they were given was remembering that she was somewhat important to Tartaros' plans. The worst part was that while their journey to the ruins of Old Kadessa was short, the ruins were so large that it would take them days to search every nook and cranny for the crown of the first Emperor.

"This place is awesome! Why would anyone abandon this?" Erika asked while taking in the sights

"There are reasons why…" Jaster said a bit ominously, right after he said that Erika accidently activated a series of runes

"Oh I see" Erika realized staring down at the runes

"Don't worry" Jaster said raising his hand calmly, a magic circle appeared on and immediately the runes around Erika disappeared

"Whoa! How did you do that?" Erika asked

"They call me the Lawmaker for a reason you know" Jaster said already moving on

"Wait what does that mean?" Erika asked running to keep up with him

"You know what runes are right?"

"What, those weird symbols that takes forever to write but when you do manage to get them finished in time they make really good traps…like earlier?" Erika asked

"Yes, well I have the strange power of being able to make, rewrite, or destroy them in an instant" Jaster explained

"So your words literally become true" Erika realized

"Pretty much, granted it only affects a small area but in a fight nobody can react in time. But while this stuff is fun to talk about, we really should be finding that crown… although it could be anywhere and we could search for days and still not find it"

"Oh well if it's manpower that's the issue" Erika started before snapping her fingers, twelve golems rose up from the ground and gathered around her "Okay guys we're looking for a really old crown that the first emperor of Ishval once wore, now it could be anywhere in these ruins so make sure you don't step on it by accident" she ordered, the golems nodded before splitting up to search the city

"Why twelve?" Jaster wondered aloud

"First number that came up" Erika shrugged as she walked on

Even with the extra help they couldn't find the crown, the only thing they did find were all the traps that had been left behind by somebody. At the end of the day they hadn't gotten through half of the ruins, and even stranger four of Erika's golems were missing. They assumed that the golems had probably run into some traps and that was that, Jaster placed protective runes around them just in case and they went to sleep. In the middle of the night though the runes were suddenly going off which immediately woke up Jaster, he tried waking up Erika but she was in too deep a sleep to care.

"Fine then I'll deal with this on my own, I'm a God of Ishval what the hell do I care" Jaster muttered angrily, however as he said that he could feel another layer of his runes being breached by something or someone and they were getting closer "What the hell I don't mess around with my protective runes, hmm 'Whoever stands in this circle will be able to see in the night'" he said, a large circle appeared around him and Erika and soon he could see in the dark

"What's going on?" Erika muttered

"Oh you're finally awake" Jaster said feeling some relief

"I guess…why the hell can I see in the night now? Did I turn into a cat like that girl in the Palace?" Erika asked trying to adjust to her new vision

"You're not a cat just stay inside the circle and you can see in the dark, something is breaching every layer of my runes and we need to see what it's all about" Jaster explained quickly

"Oh well I'll just summon my golems and see what they run into" Erika said snapping her fingers, two golems rose up and advanced to meet whatever was coming towards them. A few seconds later they heard a clash of metal on stone and a golem head was tossed back into the circle.

"Well then, that was informative" Jaster said

"At least we know that thing is strong!" Erika said getting up excitedly as she heard footsteps approaching them.

"Here it comes" Jaster said as he saw the strange figure approaching them; it looked like a man armed with two lances in its hands, one forest green and the other dark blue. He was wearing light leather armor over its body, he was around average height but was well built under that armor, had blonde hair poking out from underneath the helmet he was wearing, and what appeared to be a crown strapped to his belt

"So you two are the ones who've been wondering around my city summoning these things" the person said while looking over Jaster and Erika

"And you're the one who's been killing my golems" Erika accused

"That crown, why aren't you wearing it?" Jaster asked

"Because I'm not its rightful wearer, I merely protect it from bandits like you" the man answered

"Well if you're not the rightful wearer, then how about you give it to us and we can give it to the current Emperor and restore it to its rightful place" Jaster said walking towards the man

"No, I can sense your intentions you damn Tartaros mages!" the man exclaimed angrily assuming a fighting stance

"Jaster I got this, I haven't been able to fight a strong person in so long!" she continued excitedly pulling up her sleeves and walking towards the man

"Whatever as long as you don't break the crown I don't care what you do" Jaster said moving back to watch from a distance

"This is going to be so much fun!" Erika muttered with an eerie smile on her face


End file.
